Brooklyn College gets $3 million federal grant for student career programs

Brooklyn College just secured a $3 million federal grant to transform how its students prepare for the workforce. The five-year ROOTS initiative will launch with an initial $1 million from the U.S. Department of Education, which is the federal agency in charge of schools.

Sau-Fong Au, the director of the Women’s Center, and Yung-Yi Diana Pan, an associate professor of sociology, are leading the project. They want to make sure every student sees a clear path from their degree to a paycheck. The program will fund peer mentoring, career workshops, and networking events with industry professionals.

It also includes a new internship course to give students hands-on experience before they graduate. For local business owners, this could mean a more skilled and ready pool of workers entering the Brooklyn job market. The college plans to build these programs into its permanent structure so the benefits last long after the grant money is spent.

It is a massive investment in making sure a degree actually leads to a career. Even the science labs are getting a boost, with another $618,000 arriving for cancer research training.

Photo: Gabriel Liendo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons