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Career Connections
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Context for Expanding Career Connections
Many institutions are exploring how students may find pathways that best prepare them for post-graduate opportunities, including employment and graduate school. With high costs of a college education and increasing critiques from students and their families, institutions must clearly demonstrate the value of their students’ educational experiences compared to more affordable and easier options.
For centers of civic and community engagement, creating visible pathways tied to career preparation and readiness is a strategic move. Many centers can collaborate with other campus units, especially Career Services and Internships, to showcase these pathways. Such pathways often leverage both co-curricular and curricular experiences, often involving internships and applied learning opportunities. These pathways mesh with students’ personal and vocational interests, which for youth today often include the desire to make a difference and work on issues of concern. Such pathways often build in key high-impact practices (HIPs) that have been found to be tied to graduates’ success in the workplace. As Kuh and O'Donnell (2013) reported, to be effective HIPs must involve:
1. High performance expectations
2. Significant investment of student time and effort over an extended period
3. Interactions with faculty and peers about substantive matters
4. Students are exposed to and must contend with people and circumstances that differ from those with which they are familiar
5. Frequent, timely, and constructive feedback
6. Periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning
7. Opportunities to discover relevance of learning through real-world applications
8. Public demonstration of competence
More recent research has uncovered additional dimensions to effective HIPs, especially for today's diverse students. A 2021 report entitled Getting Beyond the High-Impact Practice (HIPs) Checklist: Designing with Elements of Quality and Racial Equity in Mind by Jillian Kinzie, Alexander McCormick, Bob Gonyea, Brendan Dugan, and Samantha Silberstein found that two additional features of HIPs are:
9. Making a difference for others
10. Agency and accomplishment
Career Pathways
The Bonner Foundation has curated resources for the following career pathways to help Bonner students gather basic information about the field, Bonner alums who are currently working in those fields, and internship and graduate program opportunities. The goal is to help students connect their passion for service with their professions. Below are brief descriptions of the career sectors and how individuals can continue engaging with the community post graduation. To learn more about the sectors / pathways, please visit The Bonner Foundation website.
Careers in the arts and entertainment industry encompass various creative fields such as music, film, visual arts, and performing arts. Artists and creative professionals are increasingly recognized not only for their artistic talents but for their ability to drive meaningful conversations and foster connections that transcend traditional boundaries. Whether through thought-provoking performances, immersive experiences, or community-based projects, the work produced within this space has the potential to challenge perceptions, promote justice, and encourage dialogue on complex topics like racial equity, environmental sustainability, human rights, and mental health.
This category includes careers related to managing organizations, financial planning, investment, and other aspects of the business world. Jobs in this field can range from financial analysts and accountants to marketing managers and business consultants. Business, finance, and economics professionals working within this space use their expertise to channel resources, capital, and strategies into initiatives that benefit communities and promote social equity. By developing financial models that prioritize social and environmental impact, they help businesses align their operations with values of justice, inclusivity, and sustainability. Whether through funding social enterprises, supporting community-driven economic development, or advocating for responsible business practices, this field empowers organizations to create long-term value for both shareholders and society at large.
This category includes careers related to promoting conservation, protecting natural resources, and addressing environmental issues. This can include roles such as environmental scientists, conservationists, sustainability coordinators, or renewable energy engineers.
Whether through renewable energy projects, sustainable agriculture, conservation efforts, waste reduction initiatives, or climate adaptation strategies, environmental and sustainability professionals are driving meaningful change at local, regional, and global levels.
Collaboration is key in this field, as professionals engage with diverse stakeholders—including governments, businesses, nonprofits, and community groups—to co-create solutions that are not only environmentally sound but also socially inclusive. By centering marginalized communities in sustainability efforts and ensuring their voices are heard, this field fosters equitable access to resources, opportunities, and a healthier environment for all.
Careers in healthcare involve providing medical care, promoting wellness, and improving the overall health of individuals and communities. Professionals in this field may work as nurses, therapist, midwife, counselor, health researcher, epidemiologist, or health organizations. These professionals, including doctors, nurses, public health experts, social workers, and community health organizers, work to improve health outcomes by partnering with communities to understand their unique needs and challenges. They emphasize prevention, education, and the social determinants of health—such as housing, education, nutrition, and access to healthcare services—as central elements in fostering healthier societies. Through grassroots initiatives, policy advocacy, and collaborative programs, healthcare professionals drive systemic change to eliminate health inequities and ensure that every community has the resources and support needed to thrive.
Education careers involve teaching, training, and guiding individuals in acquiring knowledge and skills. This includes roles such as teachers, professors, instructional designers, education administrators, student affairs professionals, and community engagement professionals. Higher education professionals, including professors, counselors, and administrators, play a crucial role in advancing research, policy, and community-based initiatives that address systemic issues. Universities and colleges serve as hubs for social innovation, where students and faculty collaborate with local and global communities to address problems such as inequality, climate change, and access to education. Through service learning, community outreach programs, and interdisciplinary research, higher education fosters a culture of engagement that prepares students to lead change in their careers and in society.
This category encompasses careers related to the legal system, public policy, human rights, international affairs, and social justice. This includes roles such as lawyer, policy analyst, refugee aid worker, field consultant, politician, and civil service. At the heart of these professions is the understanding that meaningful social change requires systemic action and cross-disciplinary collaboration. By combining legal expertise, policy innovation, and global perspective, professionals in these fields drive efforts to create fairer, more just societies—both locally and globally—while empowering communities to engage in the change-making process.
This category includes careers that focus on helping and supporting individuals and communities in areas such as counseling, social work, and advocacy. Professionals in this field can be counselors, social workers, community organizers, or nonprofit directors. Professionals in these fields work within nonprofit organizations, social enterprises, governmental bodies, and grassroots movements, contributing to initiatives that span a wide range of causes—from education and healthcare to economic justice and environmental sustainability. They focus on improving social well-being through community engagement, empowering individuals to become agents of change within their own neighborhoods.
This category includes careers that involve conducting experiments, analyzing data, designing, building, and maintaining structures, systems, and technologies, and advancing knowledge in various scientific fields. Professionals in this field may work as biologists, civil engineers, chemists, research scientists, data analysts, and IT project managers. STEM professionals working on social change and community engagement are involved in designing and implementing solutions to issues such as climate change, public health, education inequality, technological access, and social justice. By leveraging cutting-edge research and technology, they contribute to sustainable development, equitable resource distribution, and the empowerment of marginalized groups.
Designing Intentional Pathways with Proven Practices
Research involving graduates' success in the workplace and other post-graduate opportunities has further punctuated the connection with experiential learning and community engagement. For instance, a 2014 large-scale study of graduates in the U.S. conducted by Gallup Inc. and Purdue University found six factors most correlated to graduates success. As the Great Jobs, Great Lives report states: “If employed graduates feel their college prepared them well for life outside of it, the odds that they are engaged at work rise nearly three times. Experiences in college that contribute to feeling prepared for life after college, such as internships or jobs where students are able to apply what they are learning in the classroom, active involvement in extracurricular activities and organizations, and working on a project that took a semester or more to complete are part of this preparation.”
Unfortunately, through, most college students are not having these experiences. The report also found that, “Only 14% of all college graduates strongly agree that they had support in all three areas. College graduates are most likely to strongly agree that they had a professor who excited them about learning (63%), while 27% strongly agree that they had a professor who cared about them personally, and 22% strongly agree that they had a mentor who encouraged them. Unfortunately, those who strongly agree to having experienced all six elements of support and experiential and deep learning during their college time are rare: just 3% of all college graduates. This suggests that colleges can give students the knowledge and experiences that help make them engagement-ready and savvy enough to identify and seek out workplaces that foster engagement. Institutions are using a combination of communication strategies (such as videos and webpages), technology (such as e-portfolios), advising, and other components to create and make more visible examples of career preparation pathways.
Thus, effective career pathways may build in the following proven practices. See the next section, Guide, to learn more about how institutions are doing this work.
