The University of New Haven’s Career Development Center (CDC) celebrated a huge accomplishment on Tuesday. Recently, the CDC was named the 17th most effectual Career Development Center in the country, according to a new ranking released by the Princeton Review.

“The reputation and reach of the University of New Haven is clearly growing,” said President Steven H. Kaplan. “This momentum is a reflection of the outstanding faculty, high quality education, and the dedicated student body.”

Matt Caporale, Executive Director of the Career Development Center, explained the process by which a college or university can become a part of the Princeton Review’s ranking.

“Princeton Review ranks colleges and universities across the country and you have to, as an entire university, apply into the Princeton rankings. So there’s a whole set number of criteria that go into that,” said Caporale. “This year the university was accepted and…based off of different metrics, but a lot of it based off of student survey feedback, we were ranked in the top 20 top career centers.”

In order to celebrate their recent success, the CDC hosted an event in the Bixler/Gerber Quad where they had games, airbrush tattoos, food, music, and even several giveaways. Students were lined up in front of the Bartels Student Activity Center (BSAC) in order to receive their raffle tickets and to get their tattoos, all of which were free of charge.

“This was a ‘Thank You’…so we’re throwing ourselves a party I guess. That’s one way to look at it,” said Caporale. “But we wanted to thank everybody, students especially, for working with us and allowing us to help them. We just wanted to have a fun time and thank everyone for their support.”

While being ranked number 17 in the country could have put pressure on the university’s Career Development Center to continue to succeed, Caporale sees it more as incentive.

“This is validation to see that what we do works,” said Caporale. “I’ve always had the approach that it’s a village mindset, you know? It takes an entire campus community to do career development, and this place is great for that. Career development is going on outside of our office, and outside of events. It’s happening all over this place, with faculty, and staff, and athletics, it’s going on everywhere. For us moving forward it’s really motivation to appear on the rankings again! For our future we want to grow, have more of an impact, and bring more students into the types of services that we provide. It’s motivation to keep moving along those lines.”