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Cooperative Education

Gain up to a year of full-time, paid professional experience before you graduate. Cooperative Education (co-ops) let you test-drive your career with top global employers—without paying tuition while on assignment.. All undergraduate business majors require one co-op experience. Many choose to do more. Rochester Institute of Technology has one of the oldest and largest cooperative education programs in the U.S.

Career Services

The RIT Career Services and Cooperative Education Office helps students hit the ground running when their career starts after graduation. Career service advisors provide effective, high-quality services to RIT students, alumni, and employer partners. Students are assigned a dedicated career service advisor based on their business major.

Learn more about Co-ops at Saunders
View Co-op Spotlights

The Freshman Experience: Biz 1+2

Core business courses begin immediately with The Freshman Experience: Biz 1+2 where you don’t wait years to “finally start business.” Your Biz 1+2 professors will also serve as your first-year faculty advisors. From day one, all first-year students come together as a cohort to build community, master core business fundamentals, and launch real-world ventures. In the fall, you’ll team up to create and pitch a business idea to industry professionals. In the spring, you shift from building a business to running one through the MikesBikes simulation—making real decisions that impact performance, strategy, and teamwork. By the end of your first year, you’ll understand how business works and have a clearer sense of where you want to go next.

Technology Core

Core business courses have technology built-in. Taught by both full-time professors and industry practitioners, the business core provides a solid foundation and an understanding of what our hands-on curriculum consists of by taking courses across all major business disciplines. Leveraging the resources of one of the largest technology universities in the country, students are equipped for the business world from the day they graduate. The core continues with a foundation in technology through courses covering information systems and computer analysis. While additional core courses take students through the foundations of accounting, finance, management, marketing operations, organizational behavior and strategy.

Minors, immersions, and double majors allow you to customize your degree and pursue your interests

As a Saunders undergraduate student, you can add depth to your education by adding a minor or immersion in one of the numerous options available across the nine RIT colleges. Choose from options in business, liberal arts, mathematics, computer science or more. Your academic advisor can help you create a flexible double major program with Saunders College. Combine any two undergraduate business majors, such as Management and Finance or MIS and Accounting, allowing you to complete two majors in as little as four years. Now, you can apply for a double major within Saunders in your first year.

View Undergraduate Majors and Minors

Check out the full list of Saunders minors

Saunders students: contact your advisor to discuss your interests in pursuing a minor.

Saunders is a diverse and vibrant community offering a small college feel where faculty get to know you by name while offering all the resources of a large technology university. It won’t take long for you to find your niche in a community where there is always something happening. From division I athletics and academic clubs, to networking with RIT Global Campuses, to fraternities and sororities, to concerts and events sponsored by the College Activities Board—students never find themselves without an activity to participate in or an event to attend.

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Featured Events

Student life at Saunders College provides countless opportunities to get involved. Take advantage of the many opportunities for recreation and personal growth, leadership and entertainment. Join a business specific professional club. Or enjoy a full Saunders events calendar brings you the top names in business including ABC’s Shark Tank's Mr. Wonderful Kevin O’Leary and Daymond John; the founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian; Jerry Greenfield from Ben & Jerry’s; the CMO for the NFL, Dawn Hudson, and so many more.

 

Diverse and Inclusive Campus

Innovation thrives in inclusive environments. At Saunders, you'll collaborate with peers from diverse backgrounds and cultures, supported by university-wide networks like the Division of Access, Engagement, and Success.

At RIT you’ll live and study with over 2,635 international students from 102 countries. In addition, more than 2,000 students of color have elected to study at RIT, embodying our commitment to diversity. Adding a social and educational dynamic not found at any other university are more than 1,200 deaf and hard-of-hearing students supported by RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

Your Team at Saunders

You won't navigate Saunders alone. A team of academic, faculty, career, co-op, and financial aid advisors knows your goals and stays with you from your first semester to your last. Behind them is a network of 25,000+ Saunders alumni who return as mentors, competition judges, speakers, and advisory board members — and who funded many of the scholarships and facilities you'll use.

Meet the people who make up Saunders

Honors at Saunders

If the standard path isn't enough, the Saunders Honors Program pairs you with honors students from RIT's Kate Gleason College of Engineering for a three-semester seminar that follows a product from first concept to global market. You'll visit companies like Google, IDEO, and the Federal Reserve Bank, and you can apply for funded research through the Renee A. and Charles S. Brown Jr. family endowment. Fewer than 1% of first-year applicants are invited in — but Saunders also admits students during a special application window each January.

Learn more about the Honors Program