Learning from Experience
EL Connector seeks to link students with educational opportunities
Audrey Johnson (CAS’26) realized she wanted to change majors and needed help finding the right path. Nzna Nguyen (CAS’26) secured an internship at a nonprofit and wasn’t sure how she would afford summer housing.
Both turned to the CAS Experiential Learning (EL) Connector, a new resource devoted to connecting Arts & Sciences undergraduates to EL opportunities—such as faculty-mentored research, on-campus jobs, internships, service learning, study abroad, and field trips—as well as providing a space to reflect on how EL opportunities help them develop skills for the future.
Arts & Sciences launched the EL Connector in 2022, thanks to a $2.5 million anonymous alumni gift. Erin Salius, the program’s inaugural director, says feedback from focus groups helped her determine priorities for the first year. The first initiatives included the Summer Internship Support Program, which provides campus housing and a meal plan to students with unpaid or low-paid internships, and an EL Mentorship Program, which pairs junior and senior mentors with first-year mentees. Next up is an EL Ambassador program, to train undergraduates to provide one-on-one and group support to their peers, and a pilot CAS Internship Program, which will enable students to earn course credit while interning off campus.
“It was nice to have my program director and other people to give insights and advice and just listen when people were talking about the highs and lows of the weeks as an intern,” says Nguyen, a neuroscience major in the summer support program.
Johnson “applied on a whim” to the mentorship program because she felt she would benefit from some guidance. She had entered BU intending to study biochemistry, but quickly decided she wanted to pursue something else. The program helped Johnson find a summer opportunity that brought together her interests in science, politics, and business—working on a campaign focused on Chesapeake Bay conservation efforts and reducing plastic use.
One of the most powerful moments of the program came during a panel discussion about postgraduation plans. “Everyone on the panel was very accomplished, and their plans for the next year sounded very ambitious,” Johnson says. “But they also kept repeating that throughout college they failed at a lot of things. Many changed their majors last-minute. Still, I saw that it all works out.”