Career Readiness Initiative

The Career Readiness Initiative at Northwest University is designed to ensure undergraduate students learn professional and marketable skills and are equipped with tools to effectively communicate those capabilities to employers. Elements of this initiative include learning identifiable Professional Skills and earning Workplace Certificates. 

Professional Skills are organized under Competency Groups. A Professional Skill is acquired through approximately 6 student hours of work (inside and outside of class) including some amount of reading and an associated assignment (or portion of a larger assignment).  

Professional Readiness Courses are one-credit workplace readiness courses that teach a number of Professional Readiness Skills. The courses are organized around Competency Groups and are ‘sponsored’ by Colleges or Departments.   

Core Curriculum Professional Readiness Requirements. Two Core Curriculum elective credits are required to be Career Readiness credits. These credits can be earned by taking a combination of Professional Readiness Courses and introductory internship and/or job shadowing experiences. This two-credit requirement is waived for students who transfer 60 or more credits to NU; students with 47-59 transfer credits are required to take one Professional Readiness credit. 

The Career Readiness Initiative also includes Professional Readiness Certificates made up of two or three courses that together provide a clear benefit for Career Readiness. Transfer courses can count toward certificates. Students must earn a B- or higher for a course to count toward a certificate.  

Professional Readiness Certificates