A Long Term Look At The Success Of Rochester Institute Of Technology Engineering Technology Graduates

The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has collected a significant amount of historical data on the alumni of its seven engineering technology (ET) programs through surveys conducted in 1997, 2002 and again in 2009. This paper provides an analysis of the most recent 2009 data, comparisons to RIT historical data and an alignment with survey data from several other universities in the past five years. It also provides a discussion on the usefulness of alumni surveys in assessing program educational outcomes. The RIT alumni salary data obtained from all three surveys corresponds closely to salary data for engineers with job experience published by the Engineering Workforce Commission and has been a strong recruiting tool for freshman and transfer ET students. The three RIT alumni surveys document the achievements of the RIT ET graduates for the past thirty seven years and provide an assessment tool for the next RIT ABET Technology Accreditation Commission accreditation visit.