Undergraduates now have unprecedented opportunities to explore a wider range of internships across nearly all professions, thanks to a historic investment in the Dartmouth Center for Career Design.
Endowed gifts totaling $30 million will open doors to internship opportunities for all undergraduates by eliminating financial barriers, giving them the chance to explore potential careers that they might not have considered otherwise. Work experience in sectors that typically offer unpaid or underpaid internships, such as the arts, media, public service and government, global health, and conservation, will help students better understand which professions may offer the most rewarding career path for them.
The new endowed funding will make these internships possible for hundreds of students each year, a significant step toward providing the Center for Career Design with the resources necessary to offer best-in-class career services to all undergraduates.
In late 2024, Dartmouth announced that an anonymous donor had pledged to match up to $15 million in endowed gifts dedicated to internships through the Center for Career Design. Twenty-nine Dartmouth families—alumni and parents of current students—made gifts in the range of $50,000 to $2 million to meet the December 31, 2025, deadline, committing $15 million and garnering the full dollar-for-dollar challenge grant.
As a result of this generosity, Dartmouth each year will be able to support approximately 250 undergraduates who want to pursue internships in fields that often cannot offer paid internships—five times more students than previously possible.
In addition, the success of the challenge has enabled the center to increase the size of the average internship award to $4,675, an increase of more than 20% over the previous year. The size of awards, with a maximum of $6,500 available in a single term, and the volume of students served are larger than what most peer institutions offer.
“Through our Dartmouth Center for Career Design and its work with centers and institutes across campus—ranging from the Rockefeller Center to the Irving Institute—we are empowering students to pursue careers with meaning and impact,” says President Sian Leah Beilock. “At a time when parents and students are carefully scrutinizing the return on investment of a college education, we’re giving our students more tools and diverse experiences to ensure their career success.”
Cuong V. Do ’88, Tuck ’89, president and CEO of BioVie Inc. and a member of the alumni committee advising the center, says the transformative internship endowment fund will help students diversify their career interests and gain experience that will better prepare them for life after Dartmouth.
“I’ve hired and coached Dartmouth students for over three decades, and while I’ve been continually impressed by their talent, curiosity, and drive, many of them lacked the breadth and depth of internship experiences compared to undergraduates at other topflight universities,” says Do. “What excites me most today is the growing opportunity for Dartmouth students to broaden and deepen their internship experiences, bringing them in line with, and often surpassing, the experiences of their Ivy-Plus peers.”
Research conducted by the American Association of Colleges and Universities has shown that more than two-thirds of employers prefer job candidates who have completed an internship or apprenticeship.
“Internships are no longer an optional add-on,” says Joe Catrino, executive director of the Dartmouth Center for Career Design. “They’re an integral component of a Dartmouth education, especially in today’s workforce, where employers expect graduates to arrive with real-world experience, digital and AI fluency, and a proven ability to navigate in fast-moving, interdisciplinary teams.”
Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Jonathan Smolin, who directs the Dartmouth Initiative for Middle East Exchange, is collaborating with the Center for Career Design and other campus partners to launch an array of internship opportunities this year. Like Catrino, he says hands-on learning experiences are essential for students navigating a rapidly evolving global society.
“Artificial intelligence today is doing some of the skill work that students used to learn in the classroom,” Smolin says. “Internships provide the opportunity to enhance students’ human-centered ethics, judgment, and wisdom in this era. The knowledge and judgment that they gain in their internships will benefit them for life.”
Internships as a component of life design
Catrino says life design principles—structured coaching and learning experiences that guide students toward a fuller understanding of their values and worldview—are fundamental to preparing students to pursue career paths they will find most rewarding. A core element of the life design process is prototyping, he says, and internships offer a powerful way for a student to test whether a particular profession is the right fit.
“In the liberal arts tradition, we want to encourage students to explore a range of internship options,” says Catrino. “Internships in a few specific fields are popular at Dartmouth. However, we know many students would welcome the chance to pursue internships in other sectors if compensation were available. Given that nearly half of all undergraduates receive financial aid, internships that pay are essential for a significant number of our students.”
One hundred students have received support from the new endowment fund for internships during the current year’s fall and winter terms, Catrino says. Participating employers have included the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Anchorage Opera, and the World Water Film Festival, as well as government offices at the local, state, and federal levels.
Ruth Brior ’27, a biology major from Brant Lake, N.Y., says her fall term internship at the Junior Center of Art and Science in Oakland, Calif., inspired her to realize that she wants to dedicate a portion of her life to artistic endeavors.
“The opportunity to use my artistic abilities alongside my scientific observation skills was invaluable to my well-being as it allowed me to not only engage with nature but also with the scientists and artists in the community,” she says. “This experience has allowed me to see what I need in a career as well as what to avoid in the workplace. Above all else, I learned that I have the confidence and ability to advocate for myself and that I know how to adapt when something unexpected is thrown my way.”
Members of Catrino’s staff vet each internship position prior to committing funds to make sure the internship complies with the guidelines of the National Association of Colleges and Employers and will provide a meaningful learning experience for the student. All undergraduates, from first-year students to seniors, are eligible to receive support.
In addition to providing compensation, the Center for Career Design helps prepare students for their internship, says Amy Tietjen Smith, assistant director for internships and funding. “All students can meet with our coaches to ideate what might be the right experience for them in a leave term,” she says. “Coaches walk them through the steps to make this happen and will help them seek funding if the students are looking at organizations that don’t have the ability to fund internships.”
Following completion of each internship, students are invited to debrief with a career coach and are required to submit a report reflecting on their experience, summarizing the nature of their work, how they prepared for it, what they learned about the field, and how the experience affected their understanding of themselves.
“Our students are ecstatic about their experiences and how their internships have impacted their career planning,” says Catrino. “As we roll out this program, it’s my hope that over the course of the four years, every undergraduate will participate in at least one internship or other type of experiential learning opportunity—and it would be great if each student could have two or even three internships.”
Next steps
Offering students a robust internship program is a central element of life design planning, one of the Center for Career Design’s four principal objectives. Ongoing fundraising, with a goal of securing another $54 million, will enable Dartmouth to advance the other three:
- Engage students with a new team of career coaches, leading to bespoke student journeys toward greater self-understanding.
- Harness artificial intelligence tools and emerging technologies to scale personalized guidance, including job-search support and résumé refinement.
- Connect students and alumni with Dartmouth’s global network of alumni for mentorships, internships, and project-based experiences.
Catrino says the center has recruited its full team of career coaches and has established a close working relationship with multiple centers across campus. Center staff are now developing efforts to connect with alumni across the globe who can partner on internships and other career-development projects. Woven into this are the Career Communities, launched by the Center for Career Design in 2025.
The six communities allow students to explore broad sectors of the economy through personalized coaching, workshops, networking events, opportunities to connect with alumni, and other resources. The communities encompass sectors that often offer unpaid internships, including the arts and creative industries, government and law, and education and nonprofits. To date, nearly 800 students have signed up for at least one career community.
“Given the exceptional talent of our students, the diversity and passion of our alums, the flexibility of the D-Plan, and the support that our center can provide, we are positioned to offer some of the finest career design services found anywhere,” says Catrino.
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Employers and organizations interested in offering internships to Dartmouth students are invited to learn more from the Dartmouth Center for Career Design. If you’re interested in supporting the internship initiative, Dartmouth continues to welcome gifts. Information is also available by emailing internshipsforall@dartmouth.edu.
