The Center for Purposeful Work at Bates is dedicated to helping students align who they are with what they do. It helps students identify and cultivate their strengths and provides opportunities for them to acquire the knowledge, experiences, and relationships necessary to pursue their aspirations with imagination and integrity. Purposeful Work ensures that students graduate with the tools to make intentional decisions about their work, selves, and the relationship between the two.

The Center for Purposeful Work is grounded in the Bates mission, has curricular and co-curricular aspects, and takes a four-year, developmental approach to working with students. Purposeful Work is a learner-centered experience that encompasses internships, practitioner-taught courses, job shadowing and courses designed to teach students how to apply their knowledge outside the classroom – all designed to help students identify work that brings them meaning, aligning who they are with what they do.

Students are exposed to Purposeful Work on day one of their college careers, and it continues through graduation and beyond. It focuses on every aspect of the student experience, meeting students “in every chamber of their being” with the philosophy that they will derive purpose and meaning in their work (be that as a student, worker, volunteer, intern, or citizen) by aligning their values, interests, strengths, and work. Moreover, they will achieve wellbeing in their work — and life — if they engage in work that they find meaningful, that exercises their strengths, and that contributes to the world around them.

  • Biology major Michaela Pinette '19 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, participates in her Gulf of Maine Research Institute internship, sponsored by Purposeful Work, under the guidance of University of Maine faculty member Walter Golet. She is spending the summer helping researchers learn more about the migratory patterns of Atlantic bluefin tuna. Working alongside her and Golet is summer intern Drew Shane, a member of the University of Southern Maine Class of 2019. They awaited fisherman to arrive at the dock at Port Harbor Marine 1 Spring Point Dr South Portland, ME 04106 to take tissue samples from tuna heads during the annual Sturdivant Island Tuna Tournament.