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For the majority of young adults who enroll in college, the expected outcome is simple: a good career that will earn them a good living.

But once you start attending classes on campus, how do you know you are picking the right classes that will lead to a career in an in-demand field? Who is helping you find that path from college to career? Can you even find the career services office on your campus?

“We’ve had this very basic understanding that if we just put an office somewhere — shove it in the basement — and you stop off there on your way before graduating and (we) look at your resume that we’ve somehow done our job.”

Bridget Burns, Exec. Dir., University Innovation Alliance (Photo: UIA)

Bridget Burns, the executive director of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA), is my guest on this episode of Work in Progress. She says that the old model of a career services office is not enough in this day and age of rapid technological change, that it’s time to reimagine how higher education approaches the college-to-career pathway.

“It has to be integrated into the classroom,” she says, and the UIA — a national consortium of eleven universities who work together to innovate and close their achievement gaps — is working to lead that change.

This the heart of the Alliance’s mission: redesign higher education around the current and future needs of students.

Burns and UIA have some very specific recommendations and you can hear all about them in this episode of Work in Progress, available wherever you get your podcasts.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Episode 117: Bridget Burns, Executive Director, University Innovation Alliance
Host: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch, Melissa Panzer, and Ramona Schindelheim
Engineer: Daniel Tureck
Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0.

You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts