News by Topic: Student Experience

The show must go on – even if it means virtually. While performing arts offerings at RIT may look and feel differently from how they normally operate, RIT is committed to making sure they are available in a healthy and safe manner.

RIT is requiring all students, faculty, and staff to monitor their health for COVID-19 symptoms. The new policy will help protect the health and safety of the community at RIT and in the Greater Rochester area during the ongoing pandemic. Starting July 27, the university will launch the RIT Daily Health Screen website and call-in option.

In a typical year, RIT normally sees more than 17,000 students, alumni, and parents gather on campus to experience Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, events are being designed to allow alumni to participate virtually.

Several RIT research labs are ramping up work after several months of down time due to COVID-19. With the approval to reopen and prepare for fall classes, faculty-researchers have put in place some of the recommended guidelines for lab usage—from occupancy to cleaning protocols.

As the RIT community prepares to return to campus this fall, an environment of physical distancing and reduced classroom occupancies has added a new component to the course scheduling process. Throughout the summer, every college has worked to rebuild the fall schedule to accommodate the unique requirements of the fall semester.

Approximately 2,900 new students will be arriving at RIT over four days beginning Aug. 12, rather than on a single move-in day, which was the procedure in past years. All residence hall rooms are limited to two students and occupancy will be reduced in elevators to promote physical distancing.

A study abroad experience for RIT’s College of Engineering Technology (CET) students took place over Zoom when the class connected with peers from Hochschule Mittweida University of Applied Sciences in central Germany.

Engineering technology and computing students at RIT found ways to reduce energy consumption at the university’s Margaret's House Child Care Center. Members of RIT’s student chapter of National Electrical Contracting Association (NECA) worked this spring with child care staff as part of the annual NECA Green Energy Challenge, an annual student design competition.

RIT is one of America’s top universities according QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a global higher education research company and publisher of the QS World University Rankings. Universities are ranked according their research performance and career outcomes as well as a range of indicators assessing each institution’s social impact and attempts to foster equitability.

RIT students this fall can have a creative outlet to help them reflect on their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic by producing comics and visual arts narratives. Kriota Willberg, a New York City-based comic artist and illustrator, will be teaching a weekly online workshop called “Graphic Medicine,” being offered by the School of Individualized Study and the Center for Engaged Storycraft in the College of Liberal Arts.

Prospective students who may be thinking of attending RIT can now take a campus tour from their home with a new mobile app that features augmented reality with 360-degree videos.

More than 20 RIT students have been seated for senators and representative student organization positions in Student Government for the 2020-2021 academic year.