Bridge Year
What is the Concordia Bridge Year?
Bridge Year is a one-year program designed for recent Concordia graduates who want more time, support, and opportunity to prepare for what comes next.
Whether you are exploring career options, preparing for graduate school, building professional experience, pivoting to a new field, or adding skills that strengthen your resume, Bridge Year gives you the space and structure to move forward with confidence.
Through a combination of coursework, career preparation, mentoring, and meaningful experiential learning, Bridge Year helps you connect your education, values, and goals to real possibilities for your future.
Program Details
Designed for recent graduates, Concordia alumni may return for one academic year (fall and spring semesters) and take up to 16 credits of coursework, with a maximum of 12 credits per semester. Students will work with the Career Center to explore career-related experiences that support their goals. These may include internships, job shadowing, networking opportunities, mentorship, or other experiential learning options designed to help students build skills, make connections, and gain clarity about their next steps.
Students may:
- Take up to 16 credits of coursework, maximum of 12 credits per semester
- Participate in career-related workshops and learning opportunities
- Receive individualized career coaching and guidance
- Pursue paid experiential learning opportunities, including internships and on-campus employment
Bridge Year students are classified as non-degree-seeking students. Courses taken through Bridge Year are intended for personal and career enrichment and do not apply toward completion of a major, minor, or other credential. However, courses completed through Bridge Year will be factored into the undergraduate GPA.
What are the benefits?
Through the program, students can:
- Gain additional academic preparation for career or graduate school goals
- Build professional experience through internship exploration or other career-related opportunities
- Strengthen their resume, application materials, and interview skills
- Explore career paths with guidance and support
- Develop clarity around vocation, purpose, and next steps
- Stay connected to the Concordia community while preparing for life after college
- Invest in their future
- Gain additional academic preparation for career or graduate school goals
- Build professional experience through internship exploration or other career-related opportunities
- Strengthen their resume, application materials, and interview skills
- Explore career paths with guidance and support
- Develop clarity around vocation, purpose, and next steps
- Stay connected to the Concordia community while preparing for life after college
- Invest in their future
Take the Next Step
Apply by Aug. 15.
Frequently Asked Questions
Participants must have earned a bachelor's degree from Concordia College. Students who wish to complete a major or minor are not eligible for Bridge Year; rather, they will be classified as degree-seeking and charged standard tuition and fees. Applications to the program must be submitted by Aug. 15.
Students select undergraduate courses aligned to their internship/career goals. These include upper-level electives with open seats and skill-based courses. Course registration is subject to availability and completion of prerequisites. Prerequisite overrides may be requested, but are not guaranteed, through the course instructor. Capacity overrides will not be granted.
Participants will register after degree-seeking students, approximately Aug. 1 for fall semester and Dec. 1 for spring semester.
The Career Center will work with students from day one to explore internship opportunities. While internships are not guaranteed, Concordia is committed to working with each student to identify a meaningful career-related experience that aligns with their goals. This may include an internship, job shadowing, networking conversations, mentorship, or other experiential learning opportunities that help students build skills, explore careers, and make professional connections.
Students will earn the credits for the courses taken and will be factored into their undergraduate GPA. Students will not lose any academic status they earned when their degree was awarded. This gives students who wish to improve their overall GPA the opportunity to do so.
The Concordia Bridge Year is designed as a year-long, cohort-based experience. The program fee supports the full range of coursework, career development, mentoring, and professional experiences offered throughout the academic year.
The Bridge Year program fee is $4,000, which covers participation in the full one-year program. A nonrefundable $200 enrollment deposit is required to reserve your place in the program.
Students who withdraw from the Bridge Year program on or before Sept. 4, 2026, will receive a full refund of the program fee, less the $200 enrollment deposit. Because the program fee supports the full year of programming, students who choose not to enroll in courses, discontinue participation, or withdraw from the program after Sept. 4, 2026 — including during the Spring 2027 semester — remain responsible for the full $4,000 program fee.