Career Development
The Career Development Office (CDO), located in Alexander Hall, just west of the Smith Campus Center, provides a variety of resources for finding internships, summer employment, post-graduate employment and other postgraduate and gap year opportunities in addition to fellowship, graduate, and professional school information. Career Advisors assist students with seeking ways to connect their unique experiences with the value of their liberal arts education to facilitate informed choices regarding their professional aspirations. This process involves multiple steps: assessment, exploration, skill development, and post- graduate search implementation. In addition to the advising that students receive to help them through the process, the CDO facilitates workshops on a variety of career topics, frequently including alumni guest speakers who have the shared perspective of a Pomona education plus lessons learned beyond the campus gates.
Appreciating that internships are an integral part of gaining work-related experience, the CDO assists students in their search for internships, whether it is during the academic year or the summer. The CDO provides numerous resources to help students obtain internships, including an extensive database and online subscriptions to various industry-specific sources.
The CDO assesses internship options and can approve a transcript notation indicating that the internship may be valued as one-half course credit. Pomona College does not award graduation credit for stand-alone (non-course-based) internships. In order for the transcript notation to be approved, students are required to complete a reflection summary paper and return a final evaluation from their internship sponsor. Certain organizations will only hire interns with this means of remuneration. Curricular Practical Training (CPT) is available for international students.
The Pomona College Recruiting Program is national in scope. As a part of The Claremont Colleges joint on-campus recruiting program, students are exposed to various employers and graduate programs. The joint program allows Pomona students access to employers, representatives or workshops offered at any of The Claremont Colleges. The web-based recruiting and career information system, Handshake, is the gateway to internships, full-time and part-time positions, on-campus jobs, graduate schools, career-related information and more. Full-time, part-time summer jobs and internships are also available through password-protected databases that students can access either through Handshake or by contacting the office.
To broaden the opportunities for our students, the CDO collaborates with peer colleges across the nation. The CDO is a member of the Liberal Arts Career NetWORK (LACN)- a consortium of 43 nationally ranked, highly selective liberal arts institutions. This consortium, coupled with the partnership in The Claremont Colleges joint on-campus recruiting program, provide students with access to over thousands jobs and internships postings, and hundreds of on-campus and virtual events (interviews, information sessions, career fairs) annually.
The office communicates with students through several channels. The CDO’s Virtual Career Center (cdo.pomona.edu) offers a wide variety of online career resources and tips as well as other valuable career site links including a live feed of Handshake event and job listings for all Claremont campuses. Students are encouraged to sign up for curated emails of relevant job opportunities, events, and resources by customizing their profile on the CDO website. Students with a LinkedIn account can join the Pomona Career Connections and Pomona Alumni groups to connect directly with Pomona alumni in discussions about career advice and current job openings.
Pomona College Internship Program
The Career Development Office offers two distinguished internship programs with the Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP Semester) —PCIP Semester and PCIP Summer Experience. Both programs are highly selective and aid students in the process of exploring and determining a career path, gaining a rich understanding of a particular field and/or organization, building and growing their professional networks, and enhancing the understanding of how their liberal arts education will be applied in a professional work environment. Students who successfully complete their internship and required program assignments are eligible to receive a transcript notation.
PCIP: Semester
Developed in 1976, PCIP Semester provides students with a generous stipend to pursue part-time, unpaid experiential learning opportunities either in-person in the Greater Los Angeles Metro area or virtually with employers hosting high-impact remote internships.
PCIP: Summer Experience
Since 2011, the Career Development Office (CDO) has offered funding for unpaid or low-paying international and domestic summer internships to encourage students to explore diverse career fields. The funding helps alleviate financial barriers for living and travel expenses for a summer experience lasting six to eight weeks. The CDO is able to offer these awards thanks to generous donations from alumni, families and foundations.
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