In 2020, as a global pandemic hit, Beloit College adapted to meet the moment, with a plan that provided academic flexibility, enhanced mentoring and advising, and additional affordability for our students and families. 

Today’s plan tackles another concern: the connection between college and career. At a moment of profound economic uncertainty this concern — and this connection — have taken on a new urgency and a new focus at Beloit. The result is Beloit students who enter the world ready to contribute with Beloit alums powering their paths.

Read on.

1. Career Works
   
   

   Our Career Center has a new vision, and with it a new name, a new space, and a new director. Career Works takes a holistic approach to a college education. Coursework, internships, community-based learning, and careers are all part of the same experience, with each part amplifying the others. The core of this effort is our commitment to building close working relationships with students, starting early and lasting long after they graduate, and approaching our work through equity and anti-racist lenses.

   The result: We re-define career services, allowing students to define their own futures.

    

2. Career Channels
   
   

   Starting as soon as their first year, students can join a Career Channel — a professional community of peers, faculty, alumni, and outside experts — in a relevant field: arts, business and entrepreneurship, justice and rights, health and healing, sustainability, and world building.  Each Channel transcends majors, bringing together students with varied perspectives to broaden their vision of the future. Each Channel gives students access to resources that expand and deepen their interests: internships and field experiences, alumni mentors and faculty advisors, on-campus events and off-campus opportunities. And every Channel makes tangible connections between campus and career.

   The result: A relevant, real-world college experience — and graduates who are confident, focused, and employable.

    

3. Career Accelerator
   
   

   A new program that offers students two weeks of workshops, panels, and networking opportunities in between the fall and spring semesters. Enabling students to focus intensively on career preparation during the winter lull, the Career Accelerator includes intensive interview preparation, remote site visits to regional and national businesses and organizations, and personalized guidance from accomplished alumni and professionals in a range of fields.

   The result: Students identify, pursue, and secure the job, internship, or graduate school placement of their (very realistic) dreams.

    

4. Beloiters Helping Beloiters (BHB)
   
   

   What began as a lifeline during a global crisis—a network of alumni mentors for current seniors—is now a formal program. We match seniors with Beloit graduates in their fields, who serve as mentors during a crucial year of personal and professional development. When seniors need inspiration, practical guidance, and assistance addressing inequities in access to professional networks, BHB gets to work.

   The result: Seniors have access to our most powerful natural resource: personalized mentorship from Beloit alumni.

    

5. The Power Grid
   
   

   The Power Grid is a group of alumni and friends of the College who have excelled in professional industries our students are drawn to—green technology, entrepreneurship, digital media and marketing, law and social justice, and more. Students access the Power Grid through Career Works, Career Accelerator, Career Channels, and Beloiters Helping Beloiters.

   While our career advisors are, by definition, generalists, these coaches are specialists, some serving as Executives in Residence and readily accessible to students on campus. They work with students and recent alumni to understand the fields they aspire to enter, show them how to establish a professional network, and launch their careers. The Power Grid transcends location and expands opportunities.

   The result: An incomparable source of expert advice and guidance for students, drawn from Beloit’s global connections and reach.

    

This Beloit Action Plan allows us to be focused and forward-thinking; allows our community to flourish; and allows us to lead the Beloit way — with ingenuity, with agility, with humility.

This is Beloit: Uncommon, undaunted, unstoppable.