Find Your High-Impact Experience
Looking for experiences to build your resume, prepare for your career, enrich your college journey, or contribute to your personal growth? You’re looking for an HIE.
Think and Do (an HIE)
Getting the most from an NC State education means engaging in deep learning, connecting academic work with real-world applications and integrating new knowledge with future plans.
High-impact experiences are structured educational activities that significantly enhance learning, promote personal growth, and develop career-relevant skills.
Packways focuses on five types of student engagement through HIEs: early cohort, professional, scholarly, community and global.
What makes an experience ‘high-impact’?
HIEs at NC State are immersive and sustained opportunities for students to deepen and apply knowledge in and beyond the classroom. HIEs empower students, in collaboration with mentors and/or one another, to learn and grow through structured critical reflection, to make and communicate connections, and to assess and integrate goals across their collegiate experience. By equipping students with tools for lifelong learning, HIEs prepare our students to thrive in a dynamic and complex world.
High Impact Experiences are something you should do at least once throughout your four years in college, it is something that could change the trajectory of what you thought you were going to do.
– Erica Rice on her HIE experience
Business Administration with a Concentration in Marketing
92%
Of students feel like internships and field experiences helped them acquire job or work related skills
86%
Of students feel that their research experiences helped translate theory into practice
71%
Of employers felt much more likely to consider applicants who had a job or work study experience
What are students saying about HIEs?
Many kinds of experiences can be HIEs and we’ve included a list of examples under each type of student engagement below. Talk to your advisor and to professors in courses you’re interested in to see if they can recommend any other early cohort, professional, scholarly, community or global engagement opportunities.
Early Cohort
Join a group of students with similar interests to launch your academic career at NC State and forge bonds to explore the path ahead.
Wicked Problems, Wolfpack Solutions: Discover more about various disciplines, connect with the broader NC State community, and apply and reflect upon what you’re learning in this multidisciplinary experience created for all incoming first-year and transfer students and their families.
Living and Learning Villages: Engage with faculty, staff and other students in these residential communities based on common identity, skill or academic interest.
First-Year Academic Programs: Make the transition into life at NC State and explore potential majors through hands-on academic experiences. Opportunities on campus include the First Year Inquiry Program and several programs within and across colleges.
Wicked Problems, Wolfpack Solutions, Living and Learning Villages, First-Year Academic Programs
Professional
Prepare yourself for life after graduation — including entering an increasingly competitive job market — by growing your professional skills and experience.
Employment: Gain valuable work and life experience through a job on campus. Great ways to find on-campus jobs include the campus-wide ePACK system, Campus Enterprises, NC State Student Centers, Libraries, WellRec, Housing and Federal Work-Study job listings (for students who qualify).
Entrepreneurship: Want to start your own business, work with an established organization or learn a value-creation mindset that will help you succeed in any career? NC State Innovation and Entrepreneurship can help you find the right fit!
Internships/Co-Ops: Gain hands-on job experience while pursuing your degree through options for all majors. Internships can be structured in a variety of ways, while co-ops feature alternating semesters of full-time study and full-time work. Visit the Career Development Center and attend your college’s job fair to learn more about these opportunities, and explore the on-campus Campus As A Classroom sustainability internships.
Leadership: At NC State, everyone can be a leader! Learn how to lead effectively and contribute to a positive campus culture through connection to meaningful experiences and exciting opportunities. Visit Student Leadership and Engagement to learn more.
Employment, Entrepreneurship, Internships/Co-Ops, Leadership
Community
Facilitate meaningful connections through leadership development, campus involvement, and civic and community engagement opportunities.
Citizen Science: Enhance your undergraduate experience while increasing research, discovery and innovation. NC State is a Citizen Science Campus where you can take part in research opportunities on campus and engage in new projects with scientific impact.
Service-Learning Courses: Take the opportunity to lean into NC State’s land-grant mission by giving back to the community and learning at the same time through a variety of courses.
Service-Learning Projects: Gain practical leadership experience by contributing to meaningful causes —and make the community your classroom — through short-term activities including Alternative Service Breaks, volunteering on- and off-campus and more.
Examples: Citizen Science, Service-Learning Courses, Service-Learning Projects
Scholarly
Take part in research and scholarship that allows you to shape the people and places most important to you, and to take advantage of opportunities to solve society’s most pressing issues.
Undergraduate Research: Engage in mentored research experiences. The Office of Undergraduate Research offers opportunities across every discipline — including STEM, humanities, design and more.
Creative Activity: Express yourself and bring dreams and ideas to life through endless opportunities in the visual and performing arts, the written and spoken word, imaginative design and much more. The annual Art2Wear event is one showcase of creative activities on campus.
Senior Design Projects and Capstone Courses: Apply what you’ve learned in a senior design project or capstone course, working with faculty, fellow students and industry partners on semester-long projects with real-world impact designed to showcase your mastery of your chosen major.
Examples: Undergraduate Research, Creative Activity, Senior Design Projects and Capstone Courses
Global
Become empowered to take your place in the next generation of global leaders through building strategic partnerships, global knowledge, cultural understanding, skills and hands-on experiences.
Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Courses: Take part in virtual, interactive educational opportunities that connect you to faculty and students through shared experiences across international borders.
Study Abroad: Make the world your classroom by taking advantage of transformative study abroad programs, with opportunities to live and learn around the globe, including NC State’s own European Center in Prague.
Global Research and Internships: Improve your academic and professional skills, enhance your resume, and learn about other countries and cultures through research and internship opportunities around the world.
Global Certificates and Minors: Dive into your interests and prepare for your future career through global certificates and minors. Offerings include the Global Perspectives Certificate and the Global Leadership Minor, which are open to all degree-seeking undergraduate students at NC State, regardless of their major.
Examples: COIL Courses, Study Abroad, Global Research and Internships, Global Certificates and Minors
Packways Recognized HIEs
When you see the Packways Recognized symbol, you know you’re getting an experience that includes: meaningful mentorship, immersive learning over time, application of learning to real-world contexts, regular feedback and opportunities for reflection that help you connect academic knowledge with practical skills.
Benefits of participating in a Packways Recognized HIE include:
- Quality assurance: Packways Recognized HIEs are confirmed to meet NC State’s high standards. They are sustained, immersive and mentored, and include a critical reflection to connect what you’re doing to what you’ll do next.
- Critical reflection practice: Connect your experiences at NC State to your next steps and professional readiness, and be prepared to make decisions or land that dream job.
- Graduation cord: Students who complete a Packways Recognized HIE can receive a cord to wear at graduation.
- Digital badge: As you build your presence on professional platforms such as LinkedIn, it can be helpful to include digital badges to show your accomplishments; you’ll receive a Packways Recognized HIE badge when you finish your HIE.
Connection and networking: You’ll work with faculty, staff and students who can serve as mentors, helping you connect and engage as you develop your network.cognized symbol, you know the HIE has been verified for these components of quality.
Find your High-Impact Experience
Search the list of Packways Recognized HIEs that have completed our professional development on creating and facilitating high-quality, career-building experiences.
How do I talk about the value of my HIEs?
Being able to communicate the value of your HIEs demonstrates critical thinking and self-reflection skills that employers highly value, while also helping employers understand how these experiences translate into workplace competencies. This communication transforms experiences into concrete evidence of skills like problem-solving, leadership and adaptability that directly benefit organizations. When you participate in a Packways Recognized HIE you’ll learn critical reflection skills to think through and communicate how participation has prepared you for what’s next. Here is an example critical reflection exercise you can use to begin thinking about communicating the value of your HIE.
You can also talk to Career Services about including your HIEs in your resume and interview preparation.