This fall, the Questrom School of Business didn’t just celebrate the arrival of a new group of students, but also the opening of their newly renovated Feld Center for Career and Alumni Engagement on Aug. 28.
Formerly known as just the Feld Center, the center’s reorganization and renovation process began three years ago under the supervision of the Dean of Questrom Susan Fournier.
After learning that Questrom was under-resourced in career advisors, Fournier created Careers 2025. The new program is an initiative of faculty and staff tasked with expanding the center’s resources, said Monica Parker-James, the Associate Dean for Career and Alumni Engagement.
“[Career 2025] did a ton of benchmarking against peer and aspirant institutions and really thought about what kinds of resources would be required to ensure high-quality career outcomes for Questrom students,” Parker-James said.
The center also has an expanded alumni engagement team, case interview preparation tools, programs to help international students with their job search and the Exec Connect program, Parker-James said.
Exec Connect is headed by nine current and former C-suite executives to give career guidance to students looking to get more information on their future field, she said.
Rizel Serrano, a junior at Questrom, went to the center for career advice while she was applying for internships.
“They’re just there for guidance,” Serrano said. “They won’t tell you exactly what to do, but they’ll push you in the right direction and push you to other BU programs.”
During the 2023-2024 school year, the center saw a 53% increase in career coaching appointments, and a 30% and 39% increase in engagement with industry and networking events with graduate and undergraduate students respectively, according to Parker-James.
Giulia Alberti, a junior in Questrom, said using the center’s resources, such as meeting with a staff member who helped improve her resume and participating in the mock interviews they offer, helped her the most.
Sneha S, a Questrom graduate student in the Masters in Management program, who came to Boston from India, said her transition to BU was challenging because the resources at Questrom differ from those at her undergraduate institution in India.
“I feel like networking and alumni resources would be so helpful for us, especially because us getting jobs is mainly through networking more than applying,” S said.
As the Feld Center for Career and Alumni Engagement takes the fall semester to showcase its expanded student support, Associate Dean Parker-James said she and the rest of the center’s team hope to continue enhancing the center’s capabilities.
“We are constantly looking at where we can do more,” Parker-James said. “We feel very lucky we have a dean who has really focused a lot of effort in this area because we are here to support students.”