A Bowdoin education prepares you for a purposeful career anywhere you want to go.
Why do these organizations want to hire Bowdoin graduates?
Liberal Arts Foundation
A Bowdoin education—no matter the major—prepares you to think across disciplines, seek connections, and understand context, power, difference, and change.
Human Intelligence
Inside and outside of the classroom, Bowdoin students are asked to hone their skills in leadership, conflict resolution, collaboration, problem-solving, and more.
Artificial Intelligence
In collaboration with the Hastings Initiative for Artificial Intelligence and Humanity, Bowdoin students engage in big conversations around AI, including costs and benefits, ethical considerations, innovation, and impact.
One year after graduating, a typical Bowdoin class will be:
Working or Starting a Business (73%)
- Apple
- Bank of America
- Bloomberg
- Boston Children's Hospital
- Dana Farber Cancer Institute
- ESPN
- Goldman Sachs
- Massachusetts General Hospital
- Microsoft
- Morgan Stanley
- NASA Langley Research Center
- National Security Agency
- New Balance
- SpaceX
- US Department of Energy
- US Department of State
- Warner Bros. Discovery
In Graduate School (22%)
- Boston University
- Columbia University
- Duke University
- Harvard University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- New York University
- Stanford University
- University of Chicago
- University of Pennsylvania
- Yale University
Over the past five years, among graduates pursuing advanced degrees:
- 39% pursued masters degrees
- 24% pursued Ph.D.s
- 12% enrolled in law school
- 8% enrolled in medical school
- the remaining 18% pursued other postgraduate degrees, including veterinary medicine, education, and pharmacology.
Postgraduate Fellowships, Travel, Other (5%)
The Fulbright Program is the US government's flagship international academic exchange program, creating “connections in a complex and changing world,” according to the US State Department.
Bowdoin seniors are also consistently awarded Watson Fellowships, which encourage global travel, Goldwater Scholarships, for excellence in STEM research, and Truman Scholarships, in recognition of public service leadership.
Read more about Bowdoin's latest:
Browse the entire list of Bowdoin's national fellowship winners for the past fifteen years »
Here's how Bowdoin helps you get there—starting as soon as your first year.
Career Exploration and Development (CXD) works to help every Bowdoin student understand their own deeply held interests, skills, and values—and how those connect to careers.
Career Treks
With funding from donors and the College, each year CXD sends students to New York, Silicon Valley, Boston, and San Francisco, all expenses paid. Enjoy day-in-the-life site visits to companies, interactive panels, coffee chats, dinners, and networking events with alumni and other professionals in each city. Choose between Treks that focus on finance, technology, the arts, or marketing communications
Sophomores can also apply to be Bowdoin Public Service Fellows, who spend part of their Spring Break on Capitol Hill meeting with alumni—including elected, appointed and career government officials.
Personal Advising
The cornerstone of our approach is individualized, supportive, one-on-one advising—starting as soon as your first year—with experts who have real-world experience in specialized fields.
The Office of Health Professions Advising also guides and support students through the medical school preperation and application process, from course selection to final review.
A dedicated pre-law advisor helps students interested in legal careers plan their academic schedules and pursue relevant summer experience.
Sophomore Bootcamp
At the end of winter break, all Bowdoin sophomores return to campus early for Sophomore Bootcamp. Students participate in career workshops, skills development, networking, and more.
In addition to building skills (and having a sophomore class dinner), every Bootcamp participant is introduced to two Bowdoin alums through the Alumni Connections Program.
By the end of Bootcamp, every sophomore is equipped with the knowledge, skills, and resources to find and pursue summer internships, fellowships, and jobs.
When asked what they look for in a candidate, employers now rank internship experience first.
That emphasis on work experience raises the stakes for summer employment, and raises the expectations for how Bowdoin sends its graduates into the world.
We answer this call by helping all students identify and secure critically important skill-building internships, and removing the financial barriers that might stand in the way.
The Funded Internship Program awards $6,000 grants (with an additional $1,000 expenses supplement for students on aid) to pursue internship experiences across all fields that would otherwise be out of reach.
This means you can work for an industry or organization that wouldn't normally be able to afford interns, or if you are pursuing a paid internship in a place with a high cost of living, you can use those funds to travel there, jump start your office wardrobe, or stay ahead on city living expenses.
Wherever you want to go, there's a Polar Bear there.
Industry fields for new Bowdoin graduates:
The Alumni Network
94% of Bowdoin seniors received helpful advice and assistance about their postgraduate plans from the Polar Bear alumni network.
Bowdoin students have access to 23,000 alumni via LinkedIn and a secure directory; together, CXD and the Office of Alumni Relations host networking events and mock interviews, and share advice for making the most of the Bowdoin network.
Stay Competitive
Pitch competitions, quickfire challenges, and AI hackathons bring alumni and students together to tackle relevant, real-world challenges.
The Career Accelerator program subsidizes summer courses in business and consulting job-specific skills—like business analytics and financial accounting—through Coursera and Harvard Business School.
Welcoming Handshakes
CXD uses this fast and powerful recruiting platform for connecting students with employers—and for connecting Bowdoin alumni with qualified student candidates.
Handshake also includes Bowdoin-specific guidance on résumés, cover letters, personal statements, graduate school, and more.
We can't wait to see what Polar Bears will do next.
