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Career Road Trips Set to Return to New York City, Washington, D.C.

The popular Career Center initiative, discontinued during the height of the pandemic, has been revived and improved with help from Sam Stovall ’77.

By: Meghan Kita  Tuesday, February 25, 2025 01:56 PM

Photo by iStock

In the spring of 2016, Muhlenberg’s Career Center took a bus full of students to New York City to visit Sam Stovall ’77 at S&P Global (where he worked at the time), tour Wall Street, and network with other alumni. In the following semesters, students visited New York, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia for site visits in a variety of sectors. COVID-19 put a stop to these Career Road Trips, but now, thanks to Stovall, Career Center Executive Director Sue McNeilly, and Director of Employer and Alumni Engagement Jennifer Sarnitsky ’93 P’28, the trips are back and better than ever.

“I am a big believer in the old adage, ‘you hear and you forget, you see and you remember, you do and you understand,’” says Stovall, who is financially supporting the return of the Career Road Trips. “These trips serve as a confirmation of a student’s commitment to a particular profession (or can redirect their focus before they continue down the wrong path for too long) and build confidence that they have the ability to not only survive but also excel in a professional environment.”

“These trips serve as a confirmation of a student’s commitment to a particular profession (or can redirect their focus before they continue down the wrong path for too long) and build confidence that they have the ability to not only survive but also excel in a professional environment.”
—Sam Stovall ’77

 Students will visit four workplaces in each city, a contrast to the original one-day trips that required students to choose a single employer to visit before the evening networking reception. “If we’re going to take a trip somewhere, we want students to be able to see a variety of career options within that location,” McNeilly says. “Because it’s overnight, we increased the number of sites students will experience while there.”

The first two trips to New York City and Washington, D.C., will take place over spring break. Stovall’s gift will provide room, board, and transportation to 20 students per location and will also support similar fall and spring road trips through at least the next two academic years.

“College students will tell you that they learn best by seeing and doing. ... If I bring an employer to campus and they give an information session, it’s not the same as if I bring the student to that employer.”
—Career Center Executive Director Sue McNeilly

Each upcoming trip is aligned with two of the 11 “career communities” the Career Center has established to help students see the possibilities within broader areas of interest. New York City’s sites (321 Theatrical Management, Perelman Performing Arts Center, “The View,” and Deloitte) align with the business, finance, consulting, and entrepreneurship community and the arts and entertainment community. D.C.’s sites (the National Nuclear Security Administration, Ketchum, the U.S. Senate, and the strategic communications firm LSG) align with the government, public policy, and law community and the public relations, media, and communications community.

Each site has an alum who hosts the students, including one — Daniel Cohen ’17, a speechwriter and program analyst at the National Nuclear Security Administration — who remembers the D.C. Career Road Trip he went on as a formative moment in his Muhlenberg experience. Alumni have been eager to volunteer their time, McNeilly says, and students will prepare for the trip with a workshop on professional behavior and networking.

“College students will tell you that they learn best by seeing and doing,” McNeilly says. “Students need certain skills in order to be successful in the workplace. This is a great way to introduce them early to some of those skill sets pertaining to communication, professionalism, and what different workplaces look like and how they operate. If I bring an employer to campus and they give an information session, it’s not the same as if I bring the student to that employer.”