Just returned from Rochester, NY and after a very full day at R.I.T., Michael has decided that this is where he wants to go for college. Interestingly enough, not for Mechanical Engineering which was his front running major choice, but for Motion Picture Science. Sort of a chain of events, but when he had applied to RIT, he has put in Computer Science and 1st choice and they did not give an option for 2nd choice. Since that application, he realized that Mechanical Engineering was the preferred choice, but he could not switch that on the application. He was accepted into the Computer Science, but when he asked to change they could only waitlist him for Mechanical, but he looked at some other programs and stumbled upon the Motion Picture Science program.
Now his father and I were both a bit skeptical about this field, so I was very happy to have had a meeting with the Department Head and he explained how this relatively new major at RIT came to be and it is very much a combination of the Arts & Engineering. In fact, they wanted to call it Motion Picture Engineering, but NY State has a lot of bureaucratic stuff that Universities must go through to call something "Engineering". Both the department heads have Engineering degrees themselves and recognize the importance of an Engineer "brain" in the world of Imaging. This is a program that I think will be very good for Michael because he loves to "tinker" with stuff, he loves to "fix" things, he loves to "problem solve"- all of these are classic Engineer traits. On the other hand, he loves to work with sound, lights, video production & editing. So this will allow him to have a nice blend of both worlds. As for job prospects- the Major has a 99% job placement rate for graduates and the graduates are working in so many different related fields making anywhere from $35-70K a year, the ones on the Engineering side of Imaging making the higher salaries.
I knew once we met with the Director that Michael was going to pick R.I.T. and that he would pick this major. But I didn't say anything. We had our afternoon meeting with the Mechanical Engineering department head and although he had a lot of good information, I picked up on a somewhat negative attitude from him when he found that the "other" major Michael was considering was Motion Picture Science. After some more conversation, it became clear that he really didn't know anything about the program, but certainly had an opinion about it- or rather an opinion that Mechanical Engineering was a better program. I was a bit turned off by that- seems that Michael was also.
The campus is beautiful- spread out, but didn't feel that bad and for 18,000 students, you'd never know it, never once felt crowded at all. I think this was the better choice and I'm excited for him and also a little sad- it's going to be lonely around here without him and I know that his dad is going to have a really tough time letting his first-born head off to college. I know he's going to be 19 years old, but damn- it's so far away from home! Fortunately, airfares to Rochester are better than Alaska, so we should be able to bring him home for holidays. Will be building up the United miles again!
It is time for me to get to bed...we got home much later than planned since our 630pm flight to Chicago was delayed 2 hours, they then re-routed us on a 515pm flight through Newark, but security was slow and we missed that flight and ended up on a 750pm through Dulles. At least they gave us Economy Plus seats on that flight for our hassles. Watched a movie and finished my book and it was still a long flight!
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