Bring your education, your passions, and your purpose into the professional world.
MiddCORE is a mentor-driven, experiential-learning program that builds skills, creates opportunities, and expands networks for tomorrow’s leaders and innovators.
Our mentors are the key to the MiddCORE experience. Each has a proven record of accomplishment in their fields, and a demonstrated ability to teach others the tools for success. MiddCORE mentors develop hands-on challenges that inspire students to think creatively, operate outside their comfort zone, and deal with ambiguity. They help students build capacities, identify opportunities, and become effective leaders. Students leave confident, resourceful, and prepared to lead. MiddCORE is offered twice a year: as a J-Term class in the winter and as “The LAB” in the summer.
Steven Kasparek
PhD in clinical psychology at Harvard University
I’d say my work in research has been greatly improved because of my time at MiddCORE. I think a lot of people who do scientific research have a hard time incorporating innovation to try to break new ground as far as contributing novel findings to the field. I think it takes an innovative mind to gather the information that already exists, and use it to inform questions that you then design interesting and specific experiments to help answer. The flexibility of thought and understanding I learned through MiddCORE has been invaluable as I’ve built my career. In addition, MiddCORE taught me that rather than compartmentalizing various aspects of my interests and identities, I should instead seek to find ways to merge these passions to achieve maximum fulfillment in what I’m doing.
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Michelle Yang
Financial Planning & Analyst for Amazon
In my current role, I am often the youngest, usually the only non-white, and almost always the only woman in the room. Through MiddCORE and pitching for my startup, Share to Wear, I’ve developed the ability to speak with authority, even when I’m not in a position of power.
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Winson Law
Talent team, Venture For America
MiddCORE inspired me to pursue work after Middlebury that combined elements of innovation and impact. I work at Venture For America, a two-year entrepreneurship program, on its Talent team. I recruit young people who want to become startup leaders and founders, help select them, onboard them into our fellowship experience, and help match them with startup opportunities across the country.
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Sophia Prud'homme
Middlebury College student
The MiddCORE experience has been life-changing. I’ve gained a lot of confidence in my public speaking and general life skills and will absolutely carry that with me into the future. I’m really interested in how entrepreneurship can promote interdisciplinarily. The strategic challenges were a great example of experiential learning and I love when I feel like I am engaged in the real world.
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Becca Havian
Bates College student
MiddCORE has helped me think more strategically about what job market and field I might want to work in. Thanks to everything MiddCORE exposed me to, I now have a much better idea of how to use my strengths to make the most of my remaining college experience as well as when I start my professional career.
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Megan Nesbeth
Megan Nesbeth is a designer, strategist, and doer who empowers people, places, and organizations to thrive using the tools of design research, complex systems, business strategy, and the social sciences. She is currently a strategist at frog, a global design, strategy, and innovation firm.
Strategist at Frog Design
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Simon Perkins
Simon is the Chief Operating Officer for Orvis. He is responsible for their customer facing teams, that include Marketing, Consumer Direct, IT, Merchandising & Product Development, Sourcing, and Merchandise Operations & Planning. In 2016, Simon developed an “in-house agency” for Orvis, and lead the development of Orvis’ brand storytelling.
COO at Orvis
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Jenna Arnold
Jenna Arnold serial entrepreneur and author of Raising Our Hands. She is known as the co-founder of ORGANIZE and was a National Organizer for the Women’s March on Washington. Oprah has called Arnold one of the “100 Awakened Leaders who are using their voice and talent to elevate humanity”.
Chief Impact Officer at Rethink
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Duke Stump
Duke Stump is a brilliant marketing and brand strategist who builds compelling brand narratives that resonate deeply with consumers on an emotional and values-driven level. He believes in the critical role of authenticity, purpose, and culture in building successful brands. He has held senior leadership roles at Seventh Generation, Lululemon, and NIKE.
Lecturer, Advisor, Founder, Former Brand Leader at NIKE, Lululemon, and Seventh Generation
Impact
Up-level your potential: Develop the confidence, skills, hands-on experience, and network you’ll need to make a positive impact—on the world and on your future. 94% of recent participants said that MiddCORE gave them the skills to be confident in the workplace 91% declared MiddCORE to be one of their most important undergraduate experiences 98% felt they could approach strategic challenges in new ways Impact
MiddCORE and MiddCORE Summer Lab (The LAB) are a part of the Elizabeth Hackett Robinson ’84 Innovation Hub.