Nicole Anderson

Associate Director, Alumni Career Services

As Associate Director of Alumni Career Services, I manage a program that provides lifelong career services for more than 70,000 alumni from Arts & Sciences, Engineering and SMFA.  I think of ACS as the best kept secret at Tufts (though we’re pretty good at marketing, as 70K is a big population) because alumni and students are often unaware of the resource, and when they discover it, they’re pleasantly surprised.  Many universities do not have the resources to provide this service to alumni, while Tufts continues to invest in alumni career development.

While I sit in the Career Center on the Medford campus, I partner closely with the Office of Alumni Engagement and University Advancement to connect with the alumni community. My favorite part of the job has always been 1-1 career advising, and in this role, I speak with alumni around the globe.  Before I worked with alumni, I worked with undergraduate and graduate students at Tufts, so many of the alumni I connect with are people I met as students. It is gratifying to continue to be a part of their lives as they transition to their next career phases.

Before Tufts, I worked at Boston College, my alma mater, where I did my undergraduate degree in Psychology, graduate work in Higher Education and began my career in career development.  Over the years, I have committed to serving populations who have been underrepresented on college campuses.  I’ve served as co-chair of the International Student Services Committee with the National Career Development Association and Vice President of Research for the Alumni Career Services Network.

I live with my son, husband and puppy north of Boston, and I spend lots of time with my extended and boisterous Irish family.  A lifelong Massachusetts native, I follow the Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics.

Most interesting/unusual job: Some of the interesting jobs that make up my career include my very first job in high school assisting a dental hygienist – which I fondly describe as “cleaning spit”; my shortest job (1 day) selling fire extinguishers over the phone; and the most interesting jobs (there are 2) supporting two scientists at different technology companies – a physicist who invented the sensor that assisted in deploying the first car airbag and an engineer who invented the first digital camera.