In 2024, a RISD survey found that students were largely unsatisfied with career and networking opportunities at the school. On Jan. 13, 2026 — over a year later — RISD President Crystal Williams shared an action plan with the RISD community aimed in part at addressing career readiness issues.
The 2024 survey was put together by the Working Group on Preparedness for Life After RISD, which Williams established in March 2024 as part of the school’s strategic planning initiative.
The survey found that just 1% of RISD students felt “the school helped them develop business, financial or entrepreneurial skills.” Other findings included widespread dissatisfaction with alum networking, systemic inequities in access to career resources and inadequate funding for internship opportunities.
In an executive summary shared in December 2024, the working group reported that improvements in professional guidance are “necessary and urgent,” adding that RISD “cannot responsibly prepare our students for the future without rethinking our approach.”
The January action plan shared by Williams will help guide the implementation of recommendations made by the committee, alongside the overarching presidential initiatives.
But eight out of nine RISD students interviewed by The Herald said that they have not heard of the Preparedness for Life After RISD initiative.
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Trinity Breeze, a RISD senior studying illustration. “I’ve never heard any of my friends discussing it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a professor bring it up.”
According to RISD spokesperson Jaime Marland, administrators have already begun work on the presidential initiatives through 2027.
“Some are already underway, and others will require more time,” Marland wrote in an email to The Herald.
“Implementing the initiatives in coordination with the Strategic Planning process, which is currently in motion, is transformational work that takes careful planning and coordination across the campus community,” she added.
Lydia Smithey, a junior studying illustration, said that she had not heard much about the initiative but thinks it would be “fabulous” if it made a positive impact on student preparedness.
Students recognized that the art industry can be particularly difficult to navigate for post-grads. In the study, 32% of RISD graduates reported that their careers align closely with their major.
“Especially in the painting world, it’s just kind of so undefined,” said Finn Lewis, a sophomore painting major. “In general, there’s no easy tracks to go down, so it’s kind of a lot harder for them to be like, ‘Okay, this is what you have to do.’”
“I feel like I’m getting a really awesome education, and I’m really happy to be here,” she added.
According to RISD sophomore painting major Jack Gould, carving out a career in the arts is largely “up to you to make it happen for yourself.”
“But I do wish that there was more talk within the classrooms about how to make your way in the industry,” Gould added.
One of the goals of the initiative is to increase an emphasis on these skills, as well as improve inequities in career resource access.
RISD hosts an annual “Internship Connect” program, which allows students to speak with companies that interest them. Students are matched with companies through an application lottery that “will balance the distribution of all student applications with the meeting time slots for all companies,” according to the Internship Connect website.
“Internship Connect was helpful in the sense that you get to talk to people from the industry,” Karis Lau, a RISD sophomore graphic design major, said. “But the time you get to talk to them is a bit too short to really form any kind of real connection or network.”
Breeze said that she participated in Internship Connect during her sophomore and junior years at RISD, but she chose not to this year because there were fewer opportunities that interested her.
Lydia Smithey, a RISD junior majoring in illustration, felt that RISD “could have done better” with Internship Connect during her three years at RISD.
Smithey and Breeze both said they felt like there were a lack of opportunities for illustration majors as opposed to majors like graphic design and industrial design. According to the Internship Connect website, at the 2025 event, there were 10 opportunities specifically marked for illustration compared to 24 designated for graphic design, excluding companies who canceled.
The survey found that approximately one-quarter of RISD students complete internships during their time in school, which the survey says is “comparable to peer institutions.” About one-third of RISD students who have internships reported that their positions were unpaid.
“I’ve been able to network luckily, but it’s been entirely because of my professors,” Breeze told The Herald. “I expected the institution itself to be having more events and having more portfolio reviews actively.”
According to the survey, only 7% of graduates reported feeling satisfied with their access to alum networking.
RISD did not respond to a request for comment regarding the balance of opportunities provided for students at Internship Connect.
RISD also offers a career center, designed to support students in building their professional careers after their time at the fine arts and design school.
Students told The Herald that the center can be helpful but many felt it provides mostly generic advice. “I think that the career center is a great resource for at least resumes and websites and just getting the hard part of that down,” Smithey said.
Lewis described the center’s employees as “very personable” and “very willing to speak to you,” but said that the employee she met with “promoted using AI to write things” like cover letters, which Lewis said they do not want to do.
RISD did not respond to a request for comment regarding the promotion of AI at the career center.
In the spring, the center holds two virtual portfolio review events — one for fine arts and one for design — where students have the opportunity to have their portfolios reviewed by professionals and connect with potential employers.
Breeze said that the portfolio reviews have not been held in the past two years due to crashes on the website used to host the professionals. “I know a lot of people that were … supposed to get portfolio feedback from industry professionals, and just literally never got them because the website wouldn’t work,” she said.
RISD did not respond to a request for comment regarding the functionality of the website for the virtual portfolio review events.
“When it comes to these networking things, it’s definitely half the school pushing you in the right direction and half you have to do it yourself,” Smithey said.
Emily Feil is a university news and metro editor covering staff & student labor and RISD. She is from Long Beach, NY and plans to concentrate in English and international & public affairs. In her free time, she can be found watching bad TV and reading good books.
Izabella Piatkowski is a senior staff writer covering the Rhode Island School of Design.
