Fresh Out

At a time when more Americans than ever are questioning the value of a college degree, we catch up with some of Conn’s most recent grads to find out: What are they doing now?

By Amy Martin, Melissa Babcock Johnson, Katiana Smith and Tim Stevens ’03

n a crisp spring morning, Alyce Powers ’22 starts her workday with a warm greeting to Juno. He’s not technically a coworker, but he is perhaps the friendliest (and one of the most famous) beluga whales in the world. She then inquires about the status of some recently rescued sea turtle hatchlings, helps a colleague locate a particularly elusive crustacean, and gets to work setting up her classroom at Mystic Aquarium to prepare for the impending arrival of students from Groton’s Ella T. Grasso Technical High School.

As the aquarium’s education and conservation program specialist, Powers helps support local community conservation projects and leads a variety of educational programs for students of all ages, from preschoolers to college students and adult learners. It’s a job that’s perfectly tailored to her interests and experience, and a great start to what Powers hopes will be a long career in conservation.

“I found what I really wanted to do through an internship at the aquarium recommended to me by a professor,” says Powers, who majored in biology with a concentration in ecology, minored in art and conducted research at Conn. “Before this internship, I didn’t really know there was a whole field in informal education and conservation.”

Like Powers, 95% of Conn’s Gen Z alumni are employed or in graduate school within one year of graduation. It’s an impressive statistic, especially as more Americans than ever are questioning the value of a college degree. So CC Magazine partnered with the Hale Center for Career Development to go beyond the data and catch up with some of Conn’s youngest alumni to find out exactly how they are already putting the liberal arts into action.

Ichiro Kubozono ’24 is a global wealth management GTP analyst in New York City.

Prospective students come to Conn hoping to intern and eventually work in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. Our proximity to these areas is a big draw.

— Cheryl Banker, Hale Center director of employer engagement

WHERE THEY WORK

Conn’s newest grads work at big-name companies—Amazon, Google and Disney, to name a few—and at startups, hospitals and medical centers, local businesses, nonprofits and community organizations. And the vast majority of them—79%—do so in New England or the mid-Atlantic region.

“Our prospective students come to Conn hoping to intern and eventually work in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. Our proximity to these areas is a big draw,” says Cheryl Banker, the Hale Center director of employer engagement and pre-business adviser. “We have lots of partnerships with businesses and organizations in these regions and the Camel Alumni Network runs deep, so many of our graduates are able to launch their careers in one these vibrant cities.”

Ichiro Kubozono ’24, a global wealth management GTP analyst with UBS, is one of them. A quantitative economics and econometrics major and scholar in the Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts at Conn, Kubozono was first introduced to the global financial services firm through the Hale Center’s Camels Connected program, which pairs current students with alumni working at the organizations they are interested in. Kubozono connected with Billy Fleurima ’22, a global markets analyst at the company, and completed an internship there during his junior year. He received a return offer before graduation and started full-time in a two-year rotational program in August of 2024.

“I love New York City because there are people from all walks of life, and I have a lot friends from Connecticut College here. In my program, there are two other Connecticut College alumni, and we try to have brunch often to catch up,” Kubozono says. “I have a very strong support network here that has really allowed me to feel like I belong and enjoy the city.”

Another proud NYC Camel is Quinn Kilmartin ’22, a major gifts coordinator for the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global legal advocacy organization.

“Living in New York City with your best friends in your early 20s is the dream,” Kilmartin says. “I was recently at a birthday party, and there were four dozen Conn grads there. The city is so big, but constantly running into friends makes it feel much more manageable.”

For Kilmartin, working in the field of reproductive justice is also a dream. At Conn, she majored in human development and biology with a minor in psychology and joined the Public Health Pathway to explore reproductive rights advocacy.

“My All-College Symposium presentation was an analysis of the legal strategies at the Center of Reproductive Rights, and my first job was on the legal strategies team at the Center of Reproductive Rights,” says Kilmartin, who spent three years on the legal side before moving into fundraising and donor engagement in June. “The liberal arts and the Connections curriculum set me up so well for the reproductive rights movement, because it is so interdisciplinary. I could not have imagined a more fulfilling position for myself.”

QUICK FACTS ABOUT RECENT GRADS:

WHAT THEY DO

The top industries for new grads include banking, consulting and finance, with 20.4% of the Class of 2024 working in those fields one year after graduation; followed by health and medicine, with 19.6%; energy and the environment, with 10.6%; and tech, with 9% of the class employed in the field.

Megan Bidgood ’25 wasted no time launching her career in health research. Just weeks after Commencement in May, Bidgood started a full-time position as a clinical research coordinator in the Cardiac Psychiatry Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Bidgood, who double majored in psychology and human development and was a scholar in the Holleran Center for Community Action, now spends her days researching how positive psychology and motivational interviewing can improve mental health and health behavior adherence in patients with heart failure.

“The lab I’m in is so lifestyle focused and patient-first. I’ve loved all the face-to-face interaction—every person is so different with such a unique set of experiences,” says the aspiring clinical psychologist, who plans to pursue graduate school after two years. “It’s really rewarding.”

Ryan Mach ’24, who majored in economics with a minor in finance, wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for in a career until he was inspired by a junior-year internship.

“I interned at an ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance)-friendly investment shop—no weapons, oil or bad governance practices. I really liked a lot of aspects of it,” he explains. “When I came back for my senior year, I started taking a hydrology class that I really liked. And this narrative starts to take shape: I interned at this ESG-friendly firm. I enjoyed this environmental class. So every job search I did, I included ‘environmental’ as one of the keywords.”

That keyword helped him find Triumvirate Environmental, a Somerville, Massachusetts-based firm that provides sustainable environmental solutions to leading companies in the life sciences, health care, education and advanced manufacturing.

“We go in and say, ‘Is this as efficient as it can be? Where are you losing money? Is this being done sustainably? How can we improve it?’” says Mach, who serves as a business development analyst for the company. “Triumvirate’s in a pretty heavy stage of growth right now, looking to expand our footprint across the U.S. I go out to meet with new prospects, and I negotiate with them through the sales cycle and get them on board.”

Internships also helped Mach’s classmate Duc Tran ’24 refine his career goals, in part by helping him understand what he wasn’t interested in. A computer science and mathematics double major interested in tech, Tran interned at Microsoft in 2022, and then at Two Sigma, a financial services company, in 2023.

The liberal arts and the Connections curriculum set me up so well ... because it is so interdisciplinary.

— Quinn Kilmartin ’22

Anike Roberson ’24 is a food science Ph.D. student at Cornell.

Tran has found exactly what he was looking for at OpenAI, the San Francisco-based technology startup known for popular AI tools, including ChatGPT. As an infrastructure software engineer, he keeps a close eye on viral social media trends.

“Part of my job is to make sure our system can scale up when there’s a lot of traffic, to make sure we still have a functional app. So when a trend that uses OpenAI image generation, like the Studio Ghibli trend in March, goes viral, our traffic shoots up significantly,” he explains. “It’s exciting to work for a company that is really a market leader. It’s been really fun, because it’s not in every workplace that you get to sustain that kind of traffic and solve problems on that scale.”

DESTINATION: GRAD SCHOOL

Within 10 years of graduation, nearly half of all Conn alumni earn an advanced degree. About a quarter of new grads choose to get started right away, enrolling in master’s, business, medical, law and Ph.D. programs at top universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Georgetown and Dartmouth, within their first post-grad year.

Anike Roberson ’24 decided to go straight into a food science Ph.D. program at Cornell University after graduation. A chemistry major and Food Pathway scholar, she participated in Conn’s Summer Science Research Institute program during her sophomore year, working in a lab with Hans and Ella McCollum ’21 Vahlteich Associate Professor of Chemistry Tanya Schneider.

Before I studied abroad in London, I never would’ve thought I’d move away from the U.S. The Dance Department gave me the confidence to follow a dream.

— Catja Christensen ’23

“That summer taught me that I really, really like research. It lit a fire in me to pursue graduate studies—to sit with a question, to figure out answers, to write papers and to contribute to academia,” she says.

At Cornell, she works in an analytic wine flavor chemistry lab studying time-temperature dependence in canned wines. “I’m trying to see how quickly H₂S gas [which can produce a rotten egg smell] forms at different temperatures,” she explains. “After Cornell, I’d like to do a post-doc and then move into academia at a college similar to Conn.”

The path wasn’t quite as linear for Catja Christensen ’23. She grew up immersed in the performing arts, but she didn’t realize just how far—quite literally—her love of dance would take her until she got to Conn. As a dance and English double major and scholar in the Media, Rhetoric and Communication Pathway, she spent four years studying communication across the disciplines. As a junior, she studied abroad at King’s College London and fell in love with the city.

“Before I studied abroad in London, I never would’ve thought I’d move away from the U.S. But being in the Dance Department with a community of people who think outside the box encouraged me to ask myself, ‘What if I just go down this path and see what happens?’” she says. “The Dance Department gave me the confidence to follow a dream.”

With support from her professors and Conn’s fellowship advising staff, Christensen took a leap and applied for—and was granted—a Fulbright Research Award to pursue a master’s degree in dance choreography performance at the University of Roehampton in London, one of the leading institutions for graduate studies in dance.

“It was just the most incredible year of being allowed to nerd out on my favorite thing—which is dance—and connect with these brilliant people across different fields,” she says.

After earning her degree, Christensen landed a position as a front-of-house coordinator at The Royal Ballet School and was quickly promoted to marketing and communications executive.

“I love being in London, I love being surrounded by the arts, and I love working in such a big and historic organization,” she says. “It is genuinely a dream job—I’m unbelievably grateful.”

Catja Christensen ’23, a marketing and communications executive, on the steps of The Royal Ballet School in London.

PREPPED FOR SUCCESS

At Conn, career preparation begins on day one. Students explore what drives them and create personalized action plans while building the academic and professional skills to thrive in life and work. And they are supported by Hale Center career advisers at every step of the way—and long after graduation.

77% of recent graduates completed at least one internship during their time at Conn

20% completed three or more internships

$4,500 in flexible funding is available for all Conn students to support funded internships, research and other career-enhancing experiences

90+% of recent graduates would recommend the Hale Center and its programs

Learn more about Connecticut College outcomes, read more alumni stories and see exclusive videos.