UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For many business students, classroom learning is only one piece of career preparation. Building confidence, developing professional skills and applying classroom concepts to real-world challenges often happens outside of a traditional lecture.
The Penn State Smeal College of Business is working to bridge that gap through the Penn State Career Accelerator, a credit-bearing program that combines hands-on projects, industry engagement and career preparation into a single learning experience. Launched as a pilot during summer 2026, the program allows students to work on projects inspired by real companies while earning academic credit and industry-recognized certifications.
“Smeal wanted to pilot this experience because we prioritize experiential learning and know that students are very interested in it but they may not have the opportunity to complete a traditional internship when they want to,” said Ashley Rippey, executive director of the Smeal Business Career Center and instructor of record for the Penn State Career Accelerator. “This allows students to begin building experience as soon as they are ready.”
Unlike a traditional classroom, students spend the semester solving authentic business challenges while collaborating with peers, engaging with employers and strengthening professional skills that extend beyond technical knowledge. The program emphasizes communication, teamwork, career management and problem-solving alongside discipline-specific skills, allowing students to build a portfolio they can showcase to future employers.
“Students first learn skills through a flipped classroom model asynchronously. Then, they discuss what they are learning with employers and a team from Podium Education. Lastly, they immediately apply what they are learning to real-world, company-sponsored projects," Rippey said. “There are opportunities to work with Podium and me as the instructor of record on career exploration and self-reflection throughout. It's a very holistic experience.”
Students also complete projects developed with industry partners and participate in weekly collaborative sessions that connect them with peers from universities across the country. Through the experience, they gain exposure to companies while earning certificates in high-demand fields such as artificial intelligence, data analytics and digital marketing.
Freedom and trust to be more creative
For second-year marketing major Neelakant Raghavendra, the program offered an opportunity to gain professional experience early in his college career.
“I got the email, and I was like, 'I don’t read my emails' — but that one time, I opened it," he said. “[I thought to myself] I get to work with the Grammys and L’Oréal and Intel and a water charity. This is absolutely crazy.”
Raghavendra said the companies involved immediately caught his attention, particularly because he hopes to pursue a career in fashion marketing.
“It’s kind of hard to get an internship in your freshman year, like the summer after your freshman year,” he said. “I really wanted to feel like I’m doing something productive in the summer.”
Raghavendra said he initially felt intimidated by projects involving unfamiliar tools and concepts. However, he said the hands-on experience helped build confidence.
“I was completely inexperienced in anything like that,” he said. “I was incredibly scared going into it.”
As the program progressed, Raghavendra said that those feelings began to change.
One project team asked him to develop a game concept for charity that could connect with a target audience. He developed a puzzle game in which players repair pipes to bring water to homes. This assignment gave him more creative freedom than he was accustomed to in traditional coursework.
“The Career Accelerator felt more like giving trust to the student,” he said. “You’re given all that freedom and creativity to come up with a project that no one else could really create, because it's all on you.”
One of his most memorable experiences came through work connected to The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. A longtime fan of the Grammy Awards, Raghavendra said the opportunity to participate in meetings and contribute to a project involving an organization he had followed since childhood made the experience especially meaningful.
“The most challenging part during this experience was making sure I don’t tell myself that I’m too young for this or I’m too inexperienced for this,” he said.
By the end of the program, uncertainty had turned into confidence.
“Because of the Career Accelerator,” he said, “I am confident and excited for where my future will take me.”
Feedback and guidance along the way
For Shreya Venkatesh, a junior double-majoring in accounting and finance and pursuing an integrated master’s degree in accounting, the program filled a different gap.
She said she entered the Career Accelerator already feeling relatively prepared for networking, résumés and the job search but wanted more hands-on experience with data analytics and communicating technical information. One project gave her that opportunity by asking students to analyze YouTube data and identify trends, including factors that can distinguish a well-performing video from a viral one.
“The goal wasn’t just to run the analysis; it was to explain what the numbers actually meant in a way someone outside the data world could follow, almost like presenting to a client instead of turning in a problem set,” she said.
That ability to translate technical findings became one of her biggest takeaways from the program.
“Before this, I could do the technical work, but I wasn’t great at articulating it out loud in a way that landed,” she said.
The Career Accelerator program also provided résumé feedback, LinkedIn guidance and one-on-one drop-in sessions where students could receive feedback on how they presented their experience to potential employers.
For Venkatesh, those opportunities gradually strengthened her confidence.
“Every drop-in session, every project presentation, every time I had to explain something technical to someone without that background chipped away at my nerves a little more,” she said. “I’m noticeably more comfortable in those situations than I was before I started.”
Students also gained exposure to unfamiliar tools and industries. Venkatesh learned Tableau, a type of business intelligence and data visualization software, for the first time, while Raghavendra worked on projects involving areas ranging from artificial intelligence to marketing.
Raghavendra, who said he hopes to pursue fashion marketing, working on a project involving the Grammys was meaningful.
“I got to work with the company that I’ve known since my childhood,” he said.
The experience ultimately gave both students the opportunities to develop competencies they can carry into the future coursework, internships and careers.
“The model allows students to immediately apply skills to real-world problems with real-world clients and have contact with those clients to gain context for everyday problems,” Rippey said.