Online Study

Online Student Profiles

Helen Pilittere

RIT's online learning program gave Helen Pilittere of Irondequoit, NY, the option of working full-time and going to school full-time. After being laid off an administrative job at Kodak, she faced an uncertain future. "I had no real marketable skills," she says. But she had pressing family responsibilities: Her husband is disabled, and her two sons were entering college. While working two jobs to make ends meet, she began a bachelor's degree program in quality management via distance learning, and she earned her degree in 1999.

Meanwhile, Pilittere landed a job with Global Crossing, an international telecommunications company, where she now works as a capacity planning analyst. So to further her education in telecommunications, she's now enrolled in RIT's telecommunication engineering technology program - once again taking courses online.

"It turns out distance learning is a good way for me to learn," she says. She can fit the coursework into her schedule, listen to lectures more than once if she needs to, and, most important, "we have really excellent professors who are willing to help." Her efforts have thus far paid off with a 4.0 grade point average - and a new career.