Professional Development Services Center

The Environmental Design Professional Development Services Center strives to connect students with internship opportunities and post-graduation jobs. The Center organizes networking events with alumni, design professionals and graduate schools. It also provides advisement regarding the skills and appropriate materials necessary to land a great job upon graduation.

This includes assisting students with resumes, portfolios, interview techniques and professional presentations. Staff members at the center are passionate about what they do and enjoy connecting students with firms and organizations looking for emerging designers.

Nate Jones

Assistant Director of Advising and Professional Development

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Email: nathan.p.jones@colorado.edu
Phone: 303-492-1319

    Meet with the Assistant Director of Professional Development

 

Bianca Delgado-Corchado

Professional Academic Advisor

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Email: Bianca.Delgado-Corchado@colorado.edu

Channing Miller

Professional Development Services Assistant

Email: channing.miller@colorado.edu

 

 

2+

internships completed on average by
ENVD students before graduation

 

80%

of students were hired in design fields
within three months of graduation*

 

Most

environmental design
grads in the U.S.

 

Job & Internship Opportunities

Make the most of your experience here at environmental design with job and internship opportunities. We've curated a list of both jobs and internships for our students to apply to when positions become available. You can find a list of available opportunities below. 

 

Academic Credit for Internships

Internship courses are available for students to earn class credit while serving as interns in the design professions. Courses offers students opportunities to interact with classmates undertaking internships and attend professional development seminars.

Students may earn academic credit for fall/spring internships, if they have a design component and the work totals 150 hours. Students may earn three credits for their internship as an ENVD elective.

Students opting to earn credit (three credits total) for a spring or fall internship are required to be registered for the Internship Course, which entails participating in 4 course meetings during the semester, in addition to undertaking the internship. The course dimension requires that students submit three internship reflection papers, compose a “mini-portfolio'' visually demonstrating the internship experience, and provide a classroom presentation about the internship and mini-portfolio. The course meetings occur monthly and consist primarily of professional development exercises. Our main objective for these meetings is to help transform internship work into portfolio graphics. During the final meeting, each student presents on their internship experience and provides the internship graphics they developed for their portfolio. 

Interested students please may complete an internship for credit application available via the following link:

Once I receive that, I will email the internship provider a host agreement form. After the host returns the agreement, I will register you for credit. If you have any questions about the process, please contact Nate (nathan.p.jones@colorado.edu).

Students may earn academic credit for summer internships, if they have a design component and the work totals 150 hours. Students can earn three credits counting towards an ENVD elective.

Students have the option to earn the credit for summer internships in the summer or fall. Students opting for summer credit will have to pay summer tuition. For students opting for fall, the credit will become part of your regular course load (and therefore does not incur an extra cost as long as you don’t exceed 19 credit hours).

For summer credit, I require four internship reflection papers, a couple portfolio pages visually demonstrating your internship experience, and a 5-minute presentation about the experience either via Zoom or when you return to campus for the fall.

For fall credit, students will complete the reflection papers I mention above. They are also required to attend 4 internship course meetings during the semester. These meetings occur monthly and consist primarily of professional development exercises. Our primary objective for these meetings is to help facilitate transforming internship work into an intern’s portfolio. During the final meeting, each student presents on their internship experience and provides the internship graphics they developed for their portfolio.

Interested students will complete an internship for credit application available through the following link: 

Once I receive the application, I will email the internship provider a host agreement form. After the host returns the agreement, I will register the student for credit. Feel free to email me questions regarding the internship program at nathan.p.jones@colorado.edu.

Professional Development Course Requirement Application

The purpose of the ENVD Professional Development Requirement is to offer students a pathway for exploring potential professional interests through taking courses within or outside of the ENVD Program. There are very few limitations to professional development courses. However, the courses students choose for professional development must be at least relevant to their professional interests. All students must complete an application to identify and justify the designated professional development courses.

You may access the application from this link: 
ENVD students may opt to designate one semester once they have reached junior or senior status in the Program and have passed a 2100-level studio as a “professional development semester.” We recommend that students identify the semester in which they will not take a studio (the "non-studio" semester) and designate the non-studio semester as their professional development semester.

The professional development course requirement is two courses (a minimum of 6 credits) or students may apply one six credit studio to the requirement if they opt to take an extra (unrequired) studio during their professional development semester.

We recommend that students take at least one professional development course during the designated "non-studio" semester. However, since some courses are built as sequences, one of the professional development courses may serve as a prerequisite for the other course. Another limitation to taking all six credits in one semester is that both desired professional development courses may not be offered in the designated “non-studio” semester.

Please note that students cannot designate a course that is or will be applied to any ENVD requirements (including general education requirements). Transfer students may apply courses previously taken in a past college program to their professional development requirement.

Portfolio Guide

If you are in the initial stages of creating a portfolio, we recommend carefully reviewing our “Guide to Starting Your Portfolio.” Assembling a portfolio is just as much about crafting its structure (title page, accompanying graphics, and sections) as it is creating and adding the content (studio projects and other design work). This guide offers ideas about beginning and organizing a strong portfolio structure in which you can eventually place your design work. 

 

Faculty Portfolio Mentorship Program

Portfolios are a great way to illustrate your best work in an appealing visual representation. They can be crucial in your success when applying for jobs, internships and graduate school. As part of our Faculty Mentorship Program, we connect students with faculty members of their discipline to help develop and improve their portfolios. 

Once we receive a portfolio, we will send it to the appropriate faculty member based on the discipline. The faculty member will then contact the student to set up an appointment and review the portfolio.
 

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