Career Exploration and Development (CXD) announced a new grant program, Accelerator Plus, for graduating seniors to help build skills they can market to potential employers. CXD established this program in response to “the challenging economy,” according to Executive Director of CXD Kristin Brennan.

Senior Associate Director, Advisor for Nonprofit and Social Impact, Education at the CXD Meg Springer added that there are fewer opportunities for graduating seniors than in a normal year.

“The challenge so many seniors are facing is that this is a tough market. A lot of things have come off the table that are usually available, whether it’s in the sciences or in policy, or just across the board. There’s so many funding freezes and other effects that really affect people’s prospects, or they’re just going to delay their ability to start,” Springer said.

The program is an expansion of the existing Career Accelerator Program, which gives grants to undergraduate students seeking to build certain industry-specific skills that can help advance their careers.

The new Accelerator Plus program expands this grant system to graduating seniors and allows students to pitch their own credential or skill-building programs, which could range from building an app to receiving a license for teaching English as a second language.

Grants will be issued for up to $2,000. CXD currently has the funds for about 20 grants, but they expect to fund about 40 in total once they secure more funding sources.

CXD drew parallels between the current economic climate and the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of their impacts on the job market for graduating seniors. A version of the Accelerator Plus program was run by CXD during the pandemic as well.

“Some dimensions of this resemble the pandemic, in terms of just the delay on things, that sort of sense of suspense,” Springer said.

CXD also recently issued its summer internship grants. CXD received 234 applications and issued 178 grants, with the additional students placed on a waitlist.

Recently, CXD peer advisor Diego DeSousa ’25 has had students come to his peer advisor office hours seeking advice on how to pivot if they didn’t receive a summer internship grant.

“In those cases, I try to emphasize that any experience that shows that you’re going out of your way to learn something new or explore different fields [is valuable]—it doesn’t have to be directly related to your [career] angle,” DeSousa said.

Brennan noted that many students who didn’t receive grants have already begun to adjust their summer plans, thinking creatively about how they can fulfill their career exploration goals.

“Sometimes, the sponsoring organization comes up with funds all of a sudden because they really want the person, so I’ve seen a couple of those already. Sometimes, the student figures out a way to do part of the work for the organization while supplementing income with a regular job,” Brennan said. “Not every person who gets turned down ends up not doing the internship. Some people, quite a few people, actually end up doing some version of it.”