Career Catalyst is an interdisciplinary, credit-bearing course that connects students with employers to build the exact skills they need most. It scales across your campus without adding faculty workload, without compromising academic standards, and without years of infrastructure build.
The institutions defining this moment deliver on a more ambitious promise: career-connected learning for every student, in every major. As AI reshapes entry-level hiring around durable skills, project-based learning is the scalable bridge between what students learn and what employers need.
Students work on real challenges from actual companies. Riipen sources the employer projects, vets the quality, and facilitates the experience end-to-end.
Career Catalyst is grounded in learning science theory, with course design, pedagogy, and assessment built on evidence-based practice.
Built on the NACE Career Readiness framework, Career Catalyst gives every student measurable evidence of the durable skills employers are looking for.
Close the readiness gap with the human skills needed for the age of AI.
Employers say graduates lack vital human skills like communication, problem-solving, and professionalism. AI is making that gap wider. As routine work shifts to machines, the durable work that remains depends on exactly the competencies that classrooms cannot teach alone.
Career Catalyst is built on the NACE Career Readiness framework, so every student leaves with employer-validated evidence of durable competency development.
What Career Catalyst delivers for your institution.
Prospective students need tangible evidence of ROI. Career Catalyst gives institutions that evidence: every student, across majors, gains authentic employer experience and assessed career competencies during their degree.
Research has consistently shown that students who can connect their education to their future career persist at higher rates. Career Catalyst is designed to reach students at risk of disengaging, by making authentic employer collaborations available across majors rather than through internships that only a fraction of students can access.
Career Catalyst equips your students with resume-worthy experiences, an expanded professional network, and employer-validated skills. Students develop the durable, human skills that set them apart in early-career opportunities.
Start with a conversation. We will walk you through how Career Catalyst can be embedded into your course catalog, what implementation looks like for your institution, and how the model fits within your strategic priorities.
Start the conversation
