When I was in a Canadian education system high school in China, I had the goal of entering an art school and studying industrial design, because making something functional and useful was my dream. After I did my research on art schools and colleges that have industrial design programs in the States and Canada, RIT was one of my top choices. Besides RIT, I also got offers from Pratt Institute in NYC, Emily Carr University in Vancouver, U of Cincinnati in Ohio and California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Here are some reasons I picked RIT over other schools:
1. Rankings
For most Chinese parents, their kids going to a highly ranked school is important. RIT's industrial design major ranks top 3 in the country. My parents were definitely happy to see me going to RIT.
2. Financial aid
RIT offered a generous amount of scholarship to me and this reduced a lot of the financial burden on my family.
3. Diversity of programs and courses
RIT is a university that offers majors from engineering to art, and from business to liberal arts. I didn’t know if industrial design was a right choice for my future career, so if I ever backed out, I could change my major within the university, which is much easier than transferring college. In an art college, I wouldn’t be able to have the mobility to change to a non-art degree major. I ended up changing my major to packaging science after the first semester, and I like my current major a lot.
4. Co-op opportunity
RIT is excellent and successful in preparing students to obtain co-ops. My co-op advisor has given me many useful advise on either career fair preparations or on my education and future career choices. Even though industrial design students do not need co-ops to complete graduation, it’s still a great opportunity to have one in order to have ideas of working as industrial designer. I had my first co-op as a packaging engineer intern at Ocean Spray Cranberries, and this experience clarified my goal of working as a packaging engineer in the future.
5. Cost of living
Studying abroad in the US is expensive in general. Upstate NY is actually not too bad because the cost of living in Rochester is relatively low. RIT as a university has lower tuition than most of the art schools where I applied.
6. Immersing myself in American culture
RIT has growing numbers of international students and I get to immerse myself in a complete English-speaking environment and a friendly community with rich American culture, which helps my English skills and adaptability.