Choose a focus
Investigate a career sub-area and build a regular learning habit. Revise your direction as you learn.
Catalyst · Focus your preparation
Build a stronger recruiting foundation.
A focused annual cohort for primarily second-year students with an emerging direction who want to build experience, practice relevant skills, and prepare for targeted opportunities.
What members work toward
Support your ambition with preparation.
- Name a recruiting focus and explain why your interests and experience support it.
- Build substantive experience and demonstrate abilities relevant to your intended work.
- Identify gaps and act on a focused development plan.
Annual cohort · Focused career development
What members actually do
Put your interests into practice.
Maintain a development plan
Connect your goals to campus involvement, substantive experience, and the abilities you need to develop.
Build experience
Identify research, project, or internship work where you can contribute and discuss what you learned.
Practice communication and organization
Explain your direction and contribution clearly. Organize your work, manage deadlines, and follow through on commitments.
Connect with purpose
Identify a knowledge, experience, or preparation gap. Prepare purposeful questions for alumni conversations and follow through on useful feedback.
What participation requires
Curiosity, preparation, follow-through.
Bring curiosity, initiative, and an emerging explanation of your direction. Research your focus, contribute substantively, and use feedback to strengthen your skills and narrative. Revise your plan as experience changes your thinking.
Meetings end with a useful next step. At the next check-in, discuss what you did, what you learned, and how it affects your plan.
Your guides
Meet the Catalyst mentors.
Use mentor conversations to identify a useful next step and reflect on what you learn.
Garvey Cornick (Lead Mentor), Vijay Romero, David Kleinrock, and Kirkland O’Neal.
Meet the leadership teamJoin Catalyst
Recruitment and next steps.
Recruitment detailsContact Polaris for confirmed dates and current recruitment information.
Contact Polaris with questions about the program.
Previous recruitment cycle
Fall 2026 — historical dates, retained for reference.
- Application deadline
- September 18, 2026, 11:59 p.m.
- Interviews
- Beginning September 15, 2026
- Information session
- August 31, 2026, 6 p.m. · MLC 148
- Engagement Fair
- September 1, 2026 · Table 113