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Student Engagement
Student Development

The Sixth Annual Business School Mini-Con 2025

CSUN

Solutions Used

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Description

California State University, Northridge Nazarian College of Business and Economics partnered with Suitable to modernize how students engage with co-curricular experiences and career readiness initiatives. By implementing Suitable’s mobile-first platform, CSUN created a centralized hub for tracking involvement, building competencies, and motivating participation. The result was a more structured, data-driven approach to student development that empowered both students and administrators. Suitable helped them to transform fragmented engagement into a cohesive, measurable, and scalable ecosystem aligned with career outcomes.

About the School

California State University, Northridge is a large public university located in Los Angeles, California. The school is known for its diverse student population, as well as its strong commitment to access and upward mobility. Serving over 35,000 students, CSUN offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs, with its business school being a major hub for career-focused education.

The University emphasizes its experiential learning opportunities, professional development, and dedication to preparing students for long-term career success. With many first-generation college students, CSUN places a strong focus on providing equitable access to internships, networking opportunities, and skill-building experiences. However, the scale and diversity of its student body presents unique challenges in ensuring engagement consistency and tracking student progress across programs.

 

Challenges before Suitable

Before adopting Suitable, the College of Business and Economics struggled with fragmented student engagement systems and limited visibility into co-curricular participation. Opportunities such as workshops, networking events, and leadership programs were often isolated across departments, making it difficult for students to discover and fully utilize them. Additionally, administrators faced challenges in measuring the impact of these experiences. Without a centralized platform, tracking student involvement, skill development, and outcomes was inefficient and inconsistent. This lack of data made it difficult to assess program effectiveness or demonstrate value to stakeholders. Student motivation was another hurdle. Many students' efforts in the program were displayed in an unreliable manner, such as stamping physical passports to earn credit. This system quickly lost efficiency due to students not coming in and receiving stamps at the time of completing activities. This ultimately hindered accomplishments within the cohorts. Without clear pathways or progress tracking, participation was often sporadic, limiting students’ ability to build meaningful career competencies.

 

Life with Suitable

With the implementation of Suitable, CSUN transformed its approach to student engagement by introducing a centralized, mobile-friendly platform. Students gained access to a "rolodex of opportunities,” where they could easily discover events, programs, and experiences aligned with their career goals. Gamification elements such as achievements, leaderboards, and progress tracking also brought large amounts of unforeseen success amongst students. These features were able to motivate CSUN students to participate more actively and consistently across campus. As students engaged in activities, their involvement was automatically translated into measurable competencies, such as communication, business acumen, and initiative, creating a co-curricular transcript they could share with employers.

For administrators, Suitable streamlined workflows and provided powerful analytics. Staff could approve activities in bulk, track engagement trends, and assess the effectiveness of programs in real time. This data-driven approach allowed CSUN to redefine its offerings and better align them with student needs and employer expectations.

ASK THE STUDENT

“The Professional Passport Program has transformed my college experience into a proactive journey, motivating me to seek out opportunities and leadership roles that strengthen my skills and prepare me for future success."

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Yaphet Preston, Systems and Operations Management, California State University, Northridge

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Key Insights and Takeaways

The adoption of Suitable’s solutions led to significant improvements in student engagement and program visibility at CSUN. The implementation of a 4-year Passport Program, as well as a 2-year program, was able to boost exposure to Suitable and strengthen career-readiness from first-year students and up. These programs are open to all incoming freshmen and transfer students who are joining the College of Business and Economics. Each year has a certain focus and event varieties that students will need to complete based on the year that they are in. With the 4-year Passport Program, students are first eased into career introductions, and slowly gain more experience through career exploration, preparation, and ultimately career readiness by the end of 4 years. Similarly, the 2-year program is open to all transfer students and builds up to career readiness proficiency, but combines the content of career exploration and preparation. Both Passport Programs offer a myriad of opportunities for strengthening career competencies such as resume workshops, career fairs, cohort meetings, and an End of Year Reflection, all of which cultivate a skill set that is necessary for students to emerge as well-rounded individuals.

 

In addition to the yearly program badges, milestone badges were also created to uniquely incentivize students across all years to build upon more professional development skills that are not required by the programs. Participation in career-related events and co-curricular activities increased as students became more aware of opportunities and motivated by clear progress tracking. Within twelve months, student engagement increased to a rate of 98%, and student activity completions were marked at 11,784. By accumulating experiences and competencies, students were able to better articulate their skills to employers, enhancing confidence and employability. Administratively, CSUN gained unprecedented insight into student behavior and program effectiveness. Data collected through Suitable enabled more informed decision-making, allowing the university to invest in high-impact initiatives and optimize resource allocation. Overall, the institution strengthened its ability to demonstrate student success outcomes to stakeholders.

Plans for the Future

Looking ahead, the Nazarian College of Business plans to examine outcomes data in retention, salaries, and placements, paying extra attention to the student Passport completion data to inform future cohorts of clear success rates. This includes doing a deeper dive in student outcomes after the completion of the Passport Program and activities within the program offered by Suitable. ear. Additionally, CSUN hopes to adopt a second pathway for non-business school students. . This new pathway would follow a less rigid system design, allowing for students who originally missed the opportunity to indulge in the Passport Program to still have something to help them gain professional development skills.