PRIORITY ONE

Bridgewater’s commitment to career advancement is embodied in BSU Works, a fundamental ethos that drives the student experience across our campus. The innovative and comprehensive program seeks to provide every student a focus on career and life planning from the moment they arrive on campus and follow them through graduation and beyond.

From providing foundational skills that enable graduates to thrive in a competitive work environment, to connecting students with internship and research opportunities, the investments we make in our students’ future careers bear fruit — more than 90 percent of BSU alumni are employed or pursuing postgraduate education within a year of graduation.

A key aspect of BSU Works is developing and delivering programs that are aligned with changing workforce needs in high-demand industries. “The social work field needs to become more diverse in order to better reflect the communities we’re training our students to serve,” explains Dr. Carol Bonner, associate dean of the School of Social Work. “To do that, we’re exploring strategies to bring more people of color into social work and create clear pathways to careers after graduation.”

Achieving this goal requires commitment and investment on multiple fronts, including scholarships to improve access for more students, support for licensure examinations, and collaborative relationships with agencies in search of dedicated and highly qualified social workers. “We maintain close connections with the agencies where our graduates hope to find placements, so that we can be sure our programs are meeting the most pressing needs they see in the field,” says Dr. Bonner.

Support for BSU Works is a critical component of the Without Exception campaign, helping to ensure that even more opportunities for career advancement are available to students, before and after graduation. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Bridgewater,” says Michelle O’Connor. “For so many first-generation students like me, college is our first exposure to a clear track to a rewarding career. That’s why I continue to support the school: to ensure that even more students have the kinds of opportunities I did.”

“The generous funding I received allowed me to take advantage of opportunities I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise, which helped me discover new interests that eventually led to a career,” Avery Gatewood, ’22, says. “The course of my entire life would have been completely different without these opportunities.”

Avery didn’t start out with an eye toward a career in biomedical science. In his first year at BSU, he was admitted to the Students Engaging in Scientific and Mathematical Interdisciplinary Collaborations (SEISMIC) program, which afforded him a $6,000 scholarship each year and gave him the opportunity to take part in research in Dr. Merideth Krevosky’s laboratory. “At some other institutions, undergraduate research is limited to very basic support tasks,” Avery explains. “But from the start, I was reading literature, approaching problems by thinking critically, and doing some of the most fundamental aspects of actual research. And I was immediately hooked.”

Ready to put his new lab skills to work, Avery was accepted to a prestigious internship in the microscopy lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole. However, pandemic social distancing measures meant that housing couldn’t be provided for interns. This might have precluded Avery from taking advantage of this unparalleled opportunity.

“Once again, the support I got from Bridgewater made everything possible,” he says. Avery received summer internship funding from Bridgewater’s most benevolent donors, Bruce and Patricia Bartlett, to help him secure a place to stay in Woods Hole. “That was life-altering, for sure.”

At MBL, Avery continued to learn relevant wet lab techniques that are prioritized by employers in the biomedical industry. His skills and experience paved the way for a co-op opportunity at Moderna, which became a full-time research associate position after he graduated from Bridgewater. “There’s a clear throughline that you can trace from my first SEISMIC scholarship to my current position,” he says. “These funds made such a difference in allowing me to discover and explore what I love.”

“I like creating medicine that I know will help people,” Avery continues. “Whenever I’m trying to solve a problem, I’m drawing on the experiences I had in Dr. Krevosky’s lab and at MBL. Without those experiences, I wouldn’t be the researcher that I am today.”