Statements

The Center for Career Development advocates for the mission of the Office of Student Affairs by building on the education offered to students in the Schools of Architecture, Art, and Engineering through providing opportunities for student learning and development. The Center for Career Development's curricular and co-curricular programs, career counseling, and resources encourage students and alumni to advance their professional training through career development and help them realize their true maturity as designers and critical thinkers. The Center for Career Development aims to empower students and alumni to assess their values, ambitions, and skills toward continual growth in their chosen professions and beyond.

MISSION

The Center for Career Development complements The Cooper Union's academically-centered tradition by preparing students to make a successful transition from studying with a distinguished and creative faculty to applying their knowledge and skills to a professional practice.

The Career Center facilitates student inquiry into relevant applications of the education they have received at the institution, strengthening The Cooper Union's historic commitment to science and art.

The Career Center helps both students and alumni to further their professional development by teaching them how to use self-knowledge in relation to career decisions and goals, conduct career-related research, identify and pursue opportunities, prepare competitive application materials, and document and present their accomplishments. The Career Center staff seeks to achieve these goals while striving to maintain impartiality and without imposing personal biases. The Career Center cultivates positive relationships with employers, experiential-learning sites, graduate-study institutions, and not-for-profit resource organizations; identifies and promotes external grants, fellowships, and scholarships; helps shape and aid institutional goals; provides direction and consultation within the Institution on career development concerns; fosters constructive, reciprocal internal relationships; and supports Institutional assessment and relevant research endeavors and their publication, especially in relation to accreditation standards; and helps maintain Cooper Union history through its archival practices.

VISION

To advance personal, educational, and professional growth.

VALUES

The Center for Career Development is guided by these core values:

  • Commitment to the pursuit of equitable and unbiased support of all students and alumni
  • Encouragement of self-accountability, initiative, and autonomy
  • Dedication to promoting a culture of intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, engagement, generosity, and respect

 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.