For the second year in a row, Forage has named the College of Staten Island among its top schools nationally in experiential learning. CSI advanced heavily in Forage’s national ranking as well, going from a Top-50 school in 2022, to a Top-25 school in 2023, against an even greater sample size of schools measured for the ranking. Forage is a job simulation platform working with more than 1.5 million college students to set up experiential learning opportunities that can transition to post-graduate employment. This is the second year that Forage has created its list of top schools.

Forage’s head of university partnerships, Harrison Bass, said, “We’re so excited to celebrate the high-quality experiential learning being delivered at scale across the United States. What separates institutions like the College of Staten Island is that they’re in touch with the needs of students. Top institutions recognize that career readiness and work-integrated learning must be core to the student experience, closely aligned with a student’s academic experience.”

Forage’s Experiential Learning Awards recognize the top 50 four-year institutions in the country across public, private, and liberal arts colleges. The award recognizes the institutions that have excelled in driving student engagement and faculty involvement in experiential learning. Forage independently analyzed the experiential learning offerings at more than 6,000 universities (800 universities were measured in the rankings system in 2022). They score each institution on three factors: student engagement, faculty involvement, and institutional characteristics. This includes examining the percentage of students enrolled in a Forage program and the Forage program completion rate, the percentage of faculty who are registered on Forage, and institutional characteristics that include whether institutions offer occupational programs, continuing professional education, credit for life experiences, placement services for program completers, and/or credit for military training.

“Our designation as a Top-25 school for Experiential Learning highlights the focus we put on connecting our students to experiences that make students attractive to future employers,” said Interim President Timothy G. Lynch. “By creating opportunities for integrative work experience and hands-on training during undergraduate study, we are providing our students with the tools to be career-ready upon graduation. We are grateful to Forage for our partnership and look forward to building on our success.”

Several CSI students have utilized Forage’s services for project-based learning with companies like JPMorgan Chase, Electronic Arts, and Lyft Mobile, to name a few.

CSI, principally through the Computer Science Department, plans to continue to partner with Forage as one of its experiential learning tools in the future. Forage began in 2017 as an ed-tech startup on a mission to get motivated students into great jobs. They invented the job simulation, bite-sized five-to-six-hour courses that replicate tasks at top companies and help students gain the skills to be successful when applying for and working there.

The full list of Top Experiential Learning schools is available on Forage’s Website.