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Cooperative Education

Launch Your Career with Full-Time, Paid Experience

Gain up to a full year of paid, full-time professional experience before you graduate.

Co-ops let you test-drive your career with top global employers—without paying tuition while on assignment. As part of one of the nation’s oldest and largest cooperative education programs at RIT, Saunders students graduate with real-world know-how—not just classroom theory.

The RIT Office of Career Services and Cooperative Education provides tailored guidance from day one. You will work directly with a dedicated career advisor specializing in your specific business major, helping you secure top-tier Cooperative Education (co-ops) and transition seamlessly into full-time employment.

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

The Freshman Experience: Biz 1+2

Business Knowledge From Day One

Don't wait years to dive into your business major. At Saunders, your professional journey begins on day one with The Freshman Experience: Biz 1+2.

From your very first semester, you will join a cohort of peers to master business fundamentals, launch real-world concepts, and pitch ideas to active industry executives. Plus, your Biz 1+2 professors double as your first-year academic advisors, giving you personalized mentorship right out of the gate. 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

Technology Embedded Throughout

Core business courses have technology built-in as every business discipline at Saunders embeds high-demand technology skills, while taking students through the foundations of accounting, finance, management, marketing operations, organizational behavior and strategy. Taught by full-time faculty and active industry leaders, our core curriculum combines foundational business strategy with data analytics and information systems—leveraging RIT’s renowned tech resources to ensure you stand out to prospective employers.

Earn Your Master's Degree in Less Time

Fast-track your education and multiply your career potential with our accelerated +1 MBA Pathways and Accelerated Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree Options.

By combining your undergraduate business degree with a master’s degree in fields like finance, business analytics and AI, or global supply chain management, you can graduate in just five years with two advanced credentials—saving both time and tuition while accelerating your career trajectory. 

Outstanding undergraduate applicants may be offered conditional early acceptance to the +1 MBA program from designated undergraduate degree programs, as incoming first-year students.

Minors, Immersions & Interdisciplinary Paths

Broaden your perspective across all nine RIT Colleges to pursue your interests

Add depth to your degree and customize your professional edge to stand out to employers. As a Saunders College of Business undergraduate student, you can pair your business major with a minor or immersion chosen from dozens of options across all nine Rochester Institute of Technology colleges.

Custom Combinations That Match Your Ambitions

Combine core business strategy with specialized expertise across RIT’s multidisciplinary academic ecosystem—including business, liberal arts, mathematics, computer science, cybersecurity, digital design, and game design. Your academic advisor can help you create a flexible double major program at Saunders College to finish in 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.

Collaborative Culture & World-Class Facilities

Business at Saunders is active, collaborative, and deeply connected. Located at the center of RIT's vibrant campus, Saunders students thrive in state-of-the-art environments designed for team-based innovation, market simulation, and student leadership. With a small college feel, Saunders faculty and staff 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 this community where there is always something happening.

• Max Lowenthal Hall Expansion: Work in modern collaborative spaces, team room suites, and active research labs equipped with industry-standard data analytics software.

• Interdisciplinary Access: Connect with engineers, designers, and scientists at the SHED (Student Hall for Exploration and Development), MAGIC Center and other affiliated RIT centers.

• Student Organizations: Build your network through specialized business clubs, DECA, finance associations, and entrepreneurship teams.

• Activities: From division I athletics and academic clubs, networking with RIT Global Campuses, fraternities and sororities, and concerts and events sponsored by the College Activities Board—students never find themselves without an activity to participate in or an event to attend.

Explore our Saunders Blog

Explore our Virtual Tour

Featured Events

View the Saunders events calendar and Featured Events, bringing 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 at Saunders, where 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 1,529 international students from 112 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 get to know you and your personal and academic goals and stay 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 have 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