Dartmouth is making one of the most ambitious investments in career development in higher education: a Center for Career Design backed by a $94 million fundraising goal. And the effort is already more than halfway there, with $61 million raised from 127 alumni and parents.
The center brings together close one-on-one coaching, custom AI-powered career tools, expanded internship funding, and Dartmouth’s 80,000-strong alumni network into a single resource designed to serve students not just through graduation, but for a lifetime.
Students are responding. In fall 2025, 1,740 undergraduates attended the center’s events—a 337% increase from the prior year—and coaching appointments jumped 73% over the same period.
This year, for the first time, the center’s engagement with undergraduates began during first-year orientation, before classes began.
Eighty-two percent of applicants for funded internships now receive support, up from 56% last year, and the program, with full funding in hand, will meet full student demand.
And six months after graduation, the Class of 2025 reported a 96.1% success rate, with graduates working across more than a dozen industries, from scientific research and health care to government, nonprofits, and finance.
“Dartmouth is being proactive now, at a critical moment globally, as the job market goes through a foundational evolution. We’re building something unique in the career space, and we encourage alumni to join our efforts,” says Joe Catrino, executive director of the new center.
“The center doesn’t point students down a single path. It helps them see what’s possible, gives them the confidence and tools to navigate it, and stays with them long after they leave Hanover.”
According to estimates from the World Economic Forum, nearly 40% of the core skills employers need today will be different by 2030. And as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence spawn entire new industries, the future of work is changing faster than any single career plan can account for, Catrino says.
“Today’s students may soon hold jobs that don’t yet exist,” he says. “As the place where the term artificial intelligence was coined, Dartmouth knows that these shifts make the human capacities at the core of a liberal arts education more essential, not less.”
Preparing students for that reality and ensuring the lifelong value of a Dartmouth education is one of President Sian Leah Beilock’s highest priorities. It’s also the driving force behind the center, which under Catrino is reimagining how Dartmouth equips students not just for a first job, but for decades of adaptation.
“We have a responsibility to students and their families to ensure the educational experiences we offer provide a meaningful return on what may be the largest investment they ever make,” President Beilock says. “Our faculty teach students how to think. Career design is preparing them with the tools to shape and reshape their careers over a lifetime.”
Catrino, who joined Dartmouth in February 2025, says meeting the needs of today’s students requires rethinking what a career center actually does.
“A Dartmouth degree remains a powerful asset, but its greatest value isn’t what students know at Commencement, it’s their capacity to keep adapting long after,” Catrino says.
The center’s vision is supported by four key pillars, each designed to set Dartmouth apart:
- Close and intensive coaching that uses motivational interviewing and life-design techniques to help students build self-awareness, test ideas, and make intentional decisions—skills they will need throughout their lives.
- Custom AI-powered tools that provide personalized guidance, from how to explore potential career directions to how to sharpen a resume or consider an offer. These tools can engage undergraduates across all four years and draw on the collective career insights of Dartmouth’s 80,000 alumni—extending, not replacing, human thinking and coaching.
- Extraordinary access to internships and experiential learning opportunities that give students hands-on, real-world experience—essential credentials in today’s job market. With approximately half of Dartmouth undergraduates receiving financial aid, the center has raised maximum internship awards from $5,000 to $6,500 and expanded funding so that 82% of applicants now receive support, up from 56% the prior year.
- An incomparable alumni network—small enough that connections are personal, large enough to span every industry and geography—ready to serve as mentors, internship hosts, and project sponsors. The center’s resources are also available to alumni at every career stage, not just current students.
Alumni who want to open doors for the next generation are encouraged to connect through the center to offer mentorship, host an intern, or sponsor a project.
The center and its staff will also be keeping pace with changes driven by AI so that Dartmouth students are prepared for the interviews and roles that demand AI experience or awareness.
“We’re building a resource that will support the next generation of leaders, giving them the tools and confidence to keep growing even as the job market, and their career path, changes,” says Catrino. “And we don’t stop caring about your success when you get your diploma. We open doors for students to discover their futures, and we keep them open.”
Dartmouth aims to raise $94 million to fully support the center and is more than halfway to that goal. The scale of commitment reflects how far the center reaches beyond what peers offer: Among comparable Ivy-plus universities, career centers typically fund internships for 1% to 2% of undergraduates annually. Dartmouth’s center alone supports more than double the peer average.
Building on the launch of the McNutt Hall satellite career center in the heart of campus, the center has moved quickly since Catrino’s arrival, expanding partnerships with employers and academic departments and completing a $30 million campaign to endow internship funding—allowing Dartmouth to support approximately 250 undergraduates in fields that often cannot offer paid positions, five times more students than previously possible.
The remaining funds to be raised support the coaching staff and programs that will animate the career center and extend its reach to every undergraduate, comprehensively, across their four years at Dartmouth.
It will reduce the student-to-coach ratio from 414:1 in 2023 to 207:1 when fully achieved, adding coaches with expertise in the arts, environment, government and public services, and STEM, as well as in working with international students, athletes, and first-generation students.
President Beilock hopes to have the campaign for the Center for Career Design fully funded by June 2027.
“Every Dartmouth student will know from the moment they arrive that they have a dedicated team, powerful tools, and an unmatched network behind them,” says Beilock. “And every employer who hires a Dartmouth graduate will know they’re getting someone who can think critically, adapt quickly, and lead through complexity. That’s the future the Center for Career Design is building.”
Ivie Aiwuyo ’26, a marketing and media intern at the center, said the center has helped her career prep and planning.
“From receiving funding for unpaid internships to conducting mock interviews with career coaches, the Center for Career Design has supported me at every step of the career navigation journey,” Aiwuyo says. “The center has been paramount in developing my networking and interviewing skills, equipping me with a strong foundation as I pursue my professional endeavors after Dartmouth.”
At every step, Catrino and his team have been advised by a dedicated “Fit for Purpose” group of nearly two dozen alumni and parents, led by Mike Triplett ’96, who have worked to ensure that the center has the resources and expertise it needs to fulfill its potential.
“The support of our community signals how important these efforts are,” Catrino says. “Through coaching, hands-on experience, AI-powered tools, and a global alumni network, we’re helping students see what’s possible in their careers and giving them the confidence and skills to make it happen. This isn’t career services. It’s career design, and it lasts a lifetime.”
