by George Lorenzo

Suresh Iyer hails from Singapore and currently lives and works in Poughkeepsie, NY. He’s a software developer for Indotronix International Corporation (IIC), an IT services company that provides software development services to the healthcare, aerospace and telecommunications industries.

Iyer is married with two young children. About two years ago he started looking for a flexible online learning degree program that he could fit in with his demanding family and work responsibilities. He also wanted to enroll in a job-related program that was, at most, a day’s drive away from Poughkeepsie – "a college," he says "that I could have easy access to if needed."

Iyer enrolled in the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Master of Science in Information Technology Online Learning program. (RIT’s physical campus is about 5.5 hours away from Poughkeepsie.) However, Iyer could have been living back in his native Singapore, because he has yet to have a need to visit the RIT campus in person since starting his online classes back in March 2000.

RIT’s Master of Science in Information Technology curriculum is a unique and flexible program that allows students to craft their studies within a broad range of computing disciplines. Students build upon core requirements in the areas of current themes in information technology, fundamentals of telecommunications technology and fundamentals of Web-based multimedia.

"Some of the subjects (in the RIT program) were things I really wanted to learn, but I (previously) had no access to them," Iyer says. "Some of the courses directly correlate to what I have been doing - like software reuse. If anything it has helped me get a better handle on the different aspects of software management."

"I try to devote time to studies in the evenings," he continues. "I also do a lot of studying on the weekends." Since entering the program Iyers has taken two courses per quarter and is now close to finishing up as he has started on his Capstone project, which is the final part of the entire program that builds on his work and higher education experiences and ultimately demonstrates his advanced knowledge in the field of software management.

Once he earns his graduate degree "though the grace of God," Iyer says, he will contemplate what he calls "a multi-directional ambition" that includes conducting research in the field of Information Technology, continuing to move forward at his current job, and, perhaps, teaching at the college level.

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