Undergraduate Research as a Career-Readiness Tool

Amid the current cultural narrative diminishing the value of higher education, a prolonged pandemic that has exacerbated inequities in so many ways, an increasing focus on workforce development, legislative mandates, and changing student populations, the importance bridging the impact of URSCI experiences to career readiness skills is a critical next step for the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) as leaders in undergraduate research. The benefits of undergraduate
research, scholarship and creative inquiry (URSCI) has been well established in the literature as a high-impact practice that helps all of our student populations advance. However, to fully realize the transformative impact of URSCI, as faculty, mentors and higher education administrators we are called to extend our definition
of student success, learn how the valuable skills, knowledge and dispositions that our students gain and hone through participating in URSCI experiences relate to desirable career competencies, and help our students learn and articulate how their URSCI experiences help prepare them for their next steps. In 2021 our partners at National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) updated their list of career readiness competencies that our students need to enter and thrive in today’s work environment. These competencies easily map to the benefits we often see in URSCI experiences. It is valuable to map the benefits of students participating in URSCI experiences to these competencies, make a visible and transparent this crosswalk, and help our students frame their URSCI stories in ways that potential employers will understand and value.