Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private college-level institute located on a 1,300-acre wetlands just outside of Rochester's metro area. The campus is adorned by brick buildings which has given the campus an endearing nickname, "Brick City." It is in an ideal location for those who wish to not attend school in an urban area but still want to be close to the excitement that downtown offers. Downtown is a 15 minutes drive and the Greater Rochester Airport is a 5 minutes drive from the campus.

Over the past several years, RIT has garnered mixed reviews on a flux of topics including academics, social life, and diversity.

Academics: Rochester Institute of Technology is deeply invested in ensuring it's students receive the best education tuition can afford with new textbooks every quarter and state-of-the-art classrooms to go with it. The school offers more than 200 academic programs, including six doctoral programs across its eight constituent colleges. RIT operates on a quarter system where the academic year is split into 10-week sections beginning in early September and late May.

In several programs, RIT requires it's students to attend at least one co-op. What is a co-op? It's a 10-week internship experience in a field related to your major. Co-ops are greatly beneficial to students because of the experience we take back to the classroom from the workplace, and helps us in determining whether the career we are studying for will satisfy us once we start our adult lives. Additionally, co-ops have proven to be the launching pad to many careers as most of the students are welcomed back to begin their career at the same location they interned at.

However, there is a large downside with RIT's co-op requirements - some programs require it's students to participate in 3 co-ops, delaying their graduating for up to an year in comparison with it's competing schools. Thus, they are not elible to graduate until their 5th year.

As a Liberal Arts major speaking, I am probably attending the wrong college but I still love how well-rounded the education is at RIT. My studies are not emphasized too heavily in the Liberal Arts department but instead, RIT's curriculum forces me to expand my knowledge with the science and technology requirements which has left me to expand my mind and explore more scientific areas of my field.

Student Life: The current popular rumor swirling about is that RIT's majority is occupied by nerdy boys who isolate themselves playing WoW all day in their dorm and the women are in the minority and frustrated by the sausage fest they encounter at every social outing.

I believe the school's social motto should be "Life is what you make it," many students on campus still party as if it was 1999. The school's diversity with it's combination of deaf and international students should not leave anyone with the label of being the "weird foreigner" as this campus bolsters a beautiful combination of misfits.

RIT offers many opportunities to get involved with the campus one way or another through it's clubs and organizations. The school currently offers over 150 student clubs, 10 major student organizations, a diverse Interfaith center and 30 different Greek organizations.

If you're the type of person who is not interested in becoming a member of a club, RIT also proudly supports it's Div. 1 Men's Hockey team. During the academic year, the student body is heavily involved with the Men's Hockey team, along with an eccentric fan base who have labeled themselves as the "RIT Corner Crew," infamous for running around shirt-less in RIT's polar weather while heckling the opposing team's goalie. In addition to the Hockey team, RIT also has a building named Field House which is Rochester's second largest venue to host concerts for a variety of artists such as Bob Dylan, 50 Cents, and Kathy Griffin.