What is the career path for IT graduates?
IT@Rensselaer graduates often begin careers as Analysts or Consultants, working first with customers to analyze and understand a problem and then with technology creators to analyze and design the solution. Other graduates enter Leadership Development positions that prepare them for accelerated career paths to technology management.

But what about all this talk of outsourcing?
Since it is the lower-level technology jobs (e.g., programming, support) that are being outsourced, graduates of IT@Rensselaer are not affected. In fact, outsourcing creates greater demand for people in Analyst and Leadership Development positions who define and manage the outsourced tasks and integrate the results back into US and Global companies.

What will the future job market be like?
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that four of the five job categories with the largest expected percentage growth will be in IT areas (network systems and data communications analysts, computer applications software engineers, computer systems software engineers, and database administration). The Bureau report also places these IT areas in the highest quartile for salaries.

How good are the salaries for new IT graduates?
The average starting salary for graduates of the Bachelor of Science program was $55,000 in May 2005. For May 2007 MS in IT graduates, the top starting salary was $110,000. The average starting salary was $73,000. Nearly all graduates had accepted job offers by graduation with many choosing from multiple offers.

What exactly are Rensselaer’s IT graduates doing?
To give you a very specific idea of where you may be employed and what your title might be, we have listed actual first employment companies and job titles for a sampling of B.S. and M.S. graduates of IT@Rensselaer. Student and Alumni Stories will also show you the wide variety of career opportunities.

Student and Alumni Stories

Career Development Center

IT Co-op