Advice for Getting Around Campus Quickly

The most important thing you need to learn during your first semester at RIT, while the weather is comfortable, is the most efficient routes to every building on campus from where you live. You’ll be thanking yourself in the crater of winter, feeling the blood recede from your fingers and your cheeks fade to pale, walking between buildings. Getting around campus quickly saves you valuable time that you can spend in class instead of shivering outside. As a fifth-year student who has gotten lost more than a fair share of times on campus, I want to provide you with resources to help you traverse RIT’s sprawling campus.

First, familiarize yourself with the tunnel system. These underground paths underneath RIT’s main academic and dorm buildings serve as convenient pathways if you don’t want to step outside. There are three main branches: dormside, the SAU, and the library. The SAU and library tunnel systems connect above ground but still inside. The library tunnels lead to James E. Gleason Hall, the primary engineering building on campus, which has an indoor connection to the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. 

Theoretically, you can walk all the way from the edge of Louise Slaughter Hall (which is connected to Golisano indoors as well) to the campus center without having to set foot outside. Dormside tunnels have no connection to the SAU tunnels, meaning you will have to brave the Quarter Mile even during the nastiest of snowstorms.

Beyond the tunnels, there is a vast network of bike paths that connect with pedestrian walkways around campus. You can use these as a pedestrian, but pay attention. If you’re walking on them, especially during the 15 minutes where people are making their way to class each hour, people bike at high speeds to ensure they’re not late. While bikes, scooters, and rollerblades are not allowed on the Quarter Mile between the Infinity Quad and the Campus Center, get into the habit of looking around you when walking through the core of campus. I’ve had numerous close calls over the years when I thought I should’ve been safe. Some students plow through there with no consideration for the high concentration of people.

With all of this information in mind, the best way to familiarize yourself with the campus is to take the afternoon the day before classes start and chart out the path to every one of them. This will provide you with a feeling of how far away everything can be, along with cluing you in about what time to leave in order to attend class on time. I still do this as a fifth-year student if my classes are located in a building I’ve never been to, so I’m not stumbling around on the first day. As a rule of thumb, it takes 10 minutes to walk from dormside to the SHED and 20 minutes to walk across the entire campus. The period of heaviest pedestrian traffic on campus is between 12 and 2 pm, so make sure to plan accordingly for the increased traffic.

The last important element to consider when traveling around campus is the shuttle schedules. When classes are in session, over 15 different shuttles are running around RIT’s campus. The common point all of the shuttles share is Gleason Circle, directly south of the SHED. 

This is the most frequent location you’ll be boarding/leaving the shuttles, as all of the residential shuttles stop here in the morning. For first-year students living in the dorms, while there is a general shuttle that stops by dorms, it also makes a litany of other stops around campus and is significantly slower than walking on campus. The shuttles are more important if you’re heading off campus to go shopping or live at a local off-campus apartment with service directly to Gleason Circle.

The best way to learn is by doing, even if that means getting lost a few times. I hope this blog inspires you to take a long walk and explore all that RIT has to offer!