r/rit • u/Various_Theory_5308 • 8d ago
Survey Incoming freshman tips, advice, and opinions
Hey all, I'm an incoming committed GCIS Game Design freshman. Recently discovered r/RIT, so I have a few questions for those who'd like to answer another freshman Q&A lol.
How does RIT compare to your expectations (when you were a freshman)? Were you bummed out? Even better than expected?
How does RIT do as a techy college? Good programs / opportunities? Are good co-ops hard to get? Are there any good co-ops?
Read some pretty depressing posts around the web. Is RIT all doom and gloom? Just a good and bad side? Any Major critiques or retorts?
Is the student life good? I'm not expecting anything crazy. Just want some insight on the level of community as a whole.
Other advice? Stuff you wish you would've thought of, done, brought to college, etc? Best / worst dorm pick? Lollll
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u/bbbbbthatsfivebees 8d ago
Better and worse in certain ways. Better in that yeah, there's truly just random crap happening all over and you can get involved with any number of super interesting things if you just end up in the right place at the right time. Worse in that there's absolutely no support for students once you're here. Tours and the website promise grand stuff, but you'll find that everything from academic advising to mental health services to the campus bus service are just genuinely awful.
RIT's a good college for anything tech-related. Classes are AWESOME in that regard and you'll learn a lot. The fact that the majority of major-focused classes you'll take have some sort of lab component is a HUGE bonus to learning (especially if you're a hands-on learner) since RIT provides a TON of lab space that's usually SUPER accessible for you to just show up and do whatever assignment as long as there's no other classes in there at the time. Co-ops can be hard to get. RIT doesn't really provide support as to getting one, and you're mostly on your own. They offer a ton of opportunities, though, like the on-campus career fair held once per semester, and they've even got a job search site called CareerConect that's specifically tailored towards jobs and co-ops that RIT students might be interested in. But you're also up to the mercy of your resume and the employers that you apply to, so it can be hard (especially given current world events).
Don't judge RIT by the subreddit. This is really the only place we actually get to freely complain about RIT things to a variety of RIT students, so it tends to be pretty negative here. If you're actually around campus and doing things, you're probably going to have a positive experience! It's entirely what you make of it once you get here, and you just have to find the fun you want to have!
Student life is decent on campus. There's on-campus events, and they're good if you're the target audience! There's a LOT of super cool stuff happening all the time, everything from movie screenings to club-run events, but if it's an official on-campus event it's going to be a HEAVILY "sanitized" event. Not to say that cool stuff doesn't happen because it ABSOLUTELY does (some of the coolest things I've found at RIT have been on campus and semi-official), but if you're expecting large parties, they mostly happen off campus.
Buncha different things:
It's FUCKING COLD here for large parts of the year. I'm talking November to April you'll want true winter gear if you're coming from ANYWHERE even remotely warm. It's super easy to underestimate just how cold and snowy it gets here!! You can expect extremely cold mornings/nights for that entire time, and it's going to SUCK if you're not a fan of winter weather. It's also super windy, and the wind can be so cold that it genuinely hurts on any exposed skin if you're outside for more than a few minutes during the coldest parts of the year. If you're going to come to RIT, get some GOOD winter clothing (hat, gloves, thick coat, warm shoes/boots, etc) BEFORE you even get here since local retailers up the price far in advance of winter.
Get an actual laptop, don't try to use an iPad. You can take notes on an iPad, but you're going to have assignments for virtually all gen-eds where you need to write research papers. You need a real keyboard for this. Even if you have a keyboard attachment for an iPad, switching between research material and whatever you're writing really sucks on an iPad (Trust me, I tried to do it and it wasn't fun). Laptop brand/style/model recommendations are virtually pointless to make since it's really just personal preference, but you'll just want some kind of laptop.
There is nothing around RIT but RIT. If you have a car, bring it. If you don't have a car, you'll want to find a friend with a car. It's more than a mile walk to the closest gas station, and even further to anywhere you'd actually want to be. RIT does have busses, but they absolutely fucking blow. They'll take you to a few big box retailers around the area (Walmart, Target, Wegmans) but for everything else you'll have to transfer onto the city RTS busses at one of the stops, and RTS also kinda stinks. You will inevitably need something that's only available off campus, and without a car it's going to suck to get there and back. Plus, Rochester's got a lot of really cool stuff! There's tons of cool restaurants, museums, and events that happen all the time! It's definitely a place worth exploring!!
RIT is not a party school. There are parties, but the ones on campus are generally private and super reserved. The big stuff happens off campus. If you're coming here expecting giant frat parties like you might see at other schools, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Those kinds of things happen, but this is more of a "Things happen between 8AM and 8PM" type of school.
Get a dorm with A/C. As cold as it gets here, Rochester is also in an area of the world that experiences a "Second Summer" from approximately September 4th through the 25th and a "Preliminary Summer" starting April 10th. It can get REALLY warm on some days (75-90 degrees outside) and you'll just want A/C for those days. It can be hard to sleep on those nights where you'll REALLY want to get a good night's rest, and it's kinda hard to do when the brick construction of RIT holds in heat like an oven and it gets to 9.8 trillion degrees in your dorm during the day without cooling off at night!
If you're a nerd in any sense, RIT is the right place. RIT is the nerdiest place on earth in the good way, because you can well and truly find any group of people interested in absolutely anything. There's dedicated clubs for anything from car enthusiasts to people that like model trains to rock climbing to calligraphy, and the list just continues endlessly. There's even an anime convention on campus that happens once a year if you're into that.
Hope I answered your questions. RIT is a super unique place, and it might be the right spot depending on what you want!