Future-oriented curriculum

The university arms its graduates with the necessary skillset with programmes that are continuously updated to be relevant in today’s market

Rochester Institute of Technology Dubai (RIT Dubai) is committed to critical engagement and diversity and encourage intellectual curiosity and personal reflections, from the students and faculty. We work really hard on combining theory and practice and prepare students for the future. It is not a classic university, where students attend classes to earn a degree by taking lectures and exams. It engages students, making them reflect and giving them hands-on experience through the degree and internship programme as well as industry-endorsed certifications to make sure that when they graduate, they have both the theory and experience. RIT Dubai also offers a comprehensive campus life with extracurricular activities, sports and general education courses so students have the ability to be robust and agile in the future.

We support every student to achieve their best. We are also partners with public and private entities, which help in the creation of an open innovative ecosystem so students and partners will diversify the economy and add value to everyone involved.

RIT Dubai strives to be thought leaders in the educational landscape. The programmes are relevant to today’s market with a mandatory internship, which helps students gain experience and find work positions. We look into the future and that’s why we have innovation as a core element in the new campus.

Additionally, having a smart campus, a connected campus with strategic partners is critical. We are looking to take the best of what we have learned through the pandemic and complement it with physical learning. In the future, students are not only required to have ideas and solutions but also to reinvent themselves all the time. This requires a certain type of education, which we endeavour to provide at RIT Dubai.

We are the only university that provides an American degree from RIT New York. Our co-programmes are in-depth where our students can train and learn about startups, becoming consultants, do disruptive learning research with the faculty, and get an endorsed certification. The co-programme is lengthy and though many parents and students feel that their studies will go on too long, they eventually discover that this is a great way of preparing for the real world.

Students have the ability to go and study at RIT New York, which is critical as they will experience studying at the level of one of the best universities in the US while paying the fees for RIT Dubai. Our American counterpart adapted quickly to the technological advancement in the US and because of the connection between the campuses our curriculum is at a more international level.

Hybrid learning

The university discovered that online education is not the best way to provide students with the learning environment they needed but it has its advantages. Even with students returning to in-person classes in the next semester, RIT Dubai will also utilise the best online techniques to boost efficiency. Simultaneously, the curriculum will call for modern teaching methods like gamification, reflective learning, engagement learning. We are going to adapt to technology as long as it adds value.

Each programme has a learning outcome. The faculty check that students are meeting that outcome and maintaining quality. Despite the challenges of online education, we maintained the quality of education but to ensure that its enhancement and sustenance, the rise of in-person education is vital. Final exams are conducted on campus to ensure that assessments are under control.

University of the future

A university doesn’t just give out degrees to students but gives them a future. RIT Dubai is doing this by giving students several opportunities in the new campus. Our connection to RIT New York gives us a major advantage over other universities in the UAE.

Our delivery model is an open system in a smart sustainable connected campus, which makes students excited to attend classes as they don’t attend a classic university, they go to a learning environment where strategic partners, innovation, entrepreneurship and laboratories are all in one state-of-the-art campus to give them the best techniques. RIT Dubai is continuously modernising the university to make it more suitable for the future and to the domain.

Yousef Al-Assaf, President, Rochester Institute of Technology

"The university arms its graduates with the necessary skillset with programmes that are continuously updated to be relevant in today’s market."

Dr Ghalib Kahwaji, Chair — Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

"This year, RIT Dubai Sailing Tigers represented the UAE as the first and only team from the MENA region to participate in the eighth edition of the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge, an annual international sustainable maritime engineering competition. The team comprising Farooq Qasemi, Issa Mousa, Kareem Hassan, Fejsal Kopic, Jenna Endoso, Denis Borisov, Asset Semenov, Rawan Elkaial, Shamsa Alshara, Hamza Ahmed, whom I mentored, proudly showcased the outstanding engineering skills and knowledge possessed by RIT Dubai students as they competed against well-established teams from high ranking international universities in various challenging races. The Sailing Tigers ranked second in the speed record race and gained the love of the crowd as they ranked first in number of votes. RIT Dubai would like to thank the project sponsors including our platinum sponsor, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), Gold sponsors, Rochester Institute of Technology NY, ePropulsion and Silver sponsors, Technical Glass & Aluminium, Emirates NBD, and Seazone UAE. RIT Dubai students still have their eyes on the prize as they aim to represent the UAE again in next year’s edition of the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge."

Farooq Qasemi, Student

"RIT Dubai hasn’t been anything but the perfect place to support my growth both professionally and personally. From the start of my studies at the university in 2016 and up until my graduation with a bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering, I had experienced some of the most important events of my life like getting to join major corporations like Siemens and Engie as an intern thanks to RIT Dubai’s exceptional internship programme that truly prepared me professionally and is giving me an edge over other graduates in the job market. Not only was I encouraged by my university to participate in competitions and aim for the highest honours but I was also supported and mentored throughout all my endeavours like leading a great team of fellow engineering students to become the first team from the MENA region to participate in the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge. To summarise my experience as a student of RIT Dubai into one phrase, I would say it was outstandingly exceptional."