Whether you’re a new or returning undergraduate student, transfer student, or graduate student, welcome to the fall semester at UMBC!

The Career Center team is excited to support all UMBC Retrievers throughout your career journey. Whether you’re exploring majors and career options, preparing a resume, looking for an internship or job, getting ready for an interview, building your network, or figuring out what comes next, we’re here to help.

Meet with the Career Center

We offer both in-person and virtual appointments Monday through Friday from 9 a.m.–5 p.m., with select evening appointments available.

Schedule an appointment:

• Online through Handshake- simply click Career Center in the menu bar to schedule your appointment.
• By phone at 410-455-2216
• In person at the Career Center, Math/Psychology 201

Need Quick Career Help? Stop By!

No appointment? No problem! Drop-ins are available Monday through Thursday from 2–4 p.m.

These 15-minute, in-person sessions are perfect for:

• Resume and cover letter reviews
• Handshake questions
• Quick career questions
• An introduction to Career Center resources and services

Simply stop by Math/Psychology 201—no appointment needed.

Make This Semester Count

The Career Center is offering a full lineup of career fairs, employer events, workshops, networking opportunities, and industry programs throughout the fall semester. Whether you’re searching for your first internship, preparing for graduate-level opportunities, looking for a full-time position, or simply starting to explore what’s possible, there’s something for you.

Don’t wait until you need a job to connect with us. Get started early, explore your options, and make the most of your UMBC experience. We hope to see you soon!

HANDSHAKE

Handshake is UMBC’s official career platform. Use Handshake to schedule appointments, register for career events, and explore hundreds of internships, jobs, and on-campus opportunities.

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Hours & Contact Details

In-Person & Virtual Appointments

Workshops & Events

Internship & Job Search Support

Prepare Your Documents: Resumes & Cover Letters

Hello everyone!

Retriever Essentials will be closed tomorrow (8/10/2026) for relocating back to our space.

We apologize for any inconviences, and will see you on Tuesday!

Blackboard's August update is one of the bigger releases we've seen in a while, touching grading, navigation, assessments, and course workflows all at once. Here's what's changing, organized by where you'll notice it first.

Grading & the Gradebook

The biggest change in this release is a rebuilt Gradebook Grid View. Since the gradebook is where most instructors spend the most time in Blackboard each week, this one's worth knowing: instructors get a reorganized layout and a new way to manage grading tasks, arranged so you spend less time hunting for the right cell and more time actually grading.

Image 1: Example of redesigned Blackboard gradebook featuring streamlined grid view

• Learn more: Redesigned Blackboard Gradebook Hub

• Sign up: Navigate the New Gradebook (8.14 or 8.19)

Navigation & Course Content

Blackboard also reworked how students and instructors move through course content. The four changes below are small individually, but they touch every course, every day. Faculty and students alike should notice fewer wrong turns and mis-clicks once they adjust:

• Full pages, not panels: Learning modules, folders, and individual items (documents, assessments, links) now open as full pages instead of sliding panels.

• Breadcrumbs: New breadcrumbs on content pages show exactly where you are within a course's module and folder structure.

• A clearer exit: The purple "X" for closing content is replaced with a labeled exit option in the navigation banner.

• Home button, redefined: Selecting Home from inside a course now takes you to the Courses page.

Image 2: Content now opens as a full page with consistent headers and breadcrumb navigation, rather than as stacked overlay panels. The exit option now sits within the navigation banner, reducing accidental page closure.

Assessments & Student Engagement

Two changes aim to help students stay focused and on schedule: a new focus state reduces the chance a student wanders off mid-quiz, and a new to-do list gives students one place to see what's due, which may mean fewer "I didn't know this was due" emails in your inbox.

• Focus state for tests and assignments: When students begin a test or assignment, navigation and visual distractions minimize automatically. Grading and assessment functionality don't change, and students can still navigate away if they need to.

• A student to-do list: A new "Your Top To Dos" component on the Courses page surfaces up to five of a student's most urgent, deadline-driven tasks across all their active courses.

Workflow & Collaboration Tools

A handful of updates cut down on repetitive setup work for faculty running content-heavy or group-based courses. None of these change what you can do in Blackboard, but they change how long it takes to do it, and for anyone managing group projects or long-running discussion boards, that adds up:

• Duplicate content items: Instructors can now duplicate items directly on the Course Content page, retaining all original content and settings (LTI items aren't supported for duplication).

• Faster group setup: Drag and drop now manages group membership, and instructors can create multiple groups at once instead of one at a time. This is a real time-saver in large courses.

• Discussion sorting: Instructors and students can sort discussion posts newest-first or oldest-first. The chosen order is remembered per discussion, applies to nested replies, and works the same on mobile.

Image 3: Instructors can drag and drop students to assign them to a group.

Also New This Release

• Export question banks: Instructors can export a question bank to their local device to back up content or share it for reuse across courses.

• Targeted answer feedback: Students now see answer-level feedback only for the multiple-choice options they selected. Instructors still enter feedback for all options the same way.

• Journal-based release conditions: Instructors can set release conditions based on a journal's submission status, supporting more personalized learning pathways.

• Automation sender control: Anyone with automation editing permissions can now set who automated messages appear to come from, separate from who authored the automation.

When can you expect the update?

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around August 8, 2026. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on August 11, 2026; release notes will be posted to the What's New in Ultra page. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Blackboard.

For additional information about the latest updates to Ultra, and to get a sneak peek at upcoming releases, please register for our Discover What’s New in Blackboard for Teaching & Learning FA2026, scheduled for Wednesday, August 12, 2026.

Connect with Instructional Technology

As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection

  • What's new in Ultra? |Known Issues

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

It's not too late to complete your required internship this fall! While most of our internal internships are closed, there are still external internship opportuntities available. If you secure a fall internship and want to count it as your required experiential learning you must register for PBHL 470 or 471 during the semester you complete your internship hours. If you have secured an internship, are looking for an internship, or want to be on the waitlist for new internships for this fall you can fill out the Google Form to indicate your interest.

Spring internship applications for internal partners are also open! Fill out the Google Form befor Novemeber 1st to apply for internal positions. Look for our Internship Information sessions in early September for more information on the internship process for Public Health majors.

Internship registration for PBHL 470 and 471 is limited to Public Health majors but minors are welcome to use the internship resources on the SAPH website to complete a non-credit internship. Don't forget to check out the UMBC Career Center website as well!

https://www.bcpl.info/blog/2026/support-librarys-school-supply-drive

I have some items from home that I will be dropping off to this school supply drive in the upcoming weeks.  If anyone has personal items of this nature they no longer need, bring them to me in the TRC and I'll drop it all off in one haul.

Items on the list:
Book Bags / Backpacks
Colored Pencils
Crayons
Dividers
Erasers
Folders
Glue/Glue Sticks
Highlighters
Markers
Notebook Paper
Pencils
Pencil Case
Pens
Post-it Notes
Rulers
Three-ring Binders

If you're willing to bring the items to the TRC, I'll load them up in my van and drop them off.  Just drop off your stuff in TRC 105 or 105A.  Email me to schedule a time, if you'd like.

NOTE:  This is NOT for UMBC-owned items, which must remain with State Government operations.

All,

The building and pehaps the campus overall seems to have experienced a sudden but transitory increase in the pH of the water during the past 7 - 10 days. I'm going to suggest that everyone flush both their purified water (RO) and domestic water at the laboratory sinks for the next few days before use. 

I have scheduled Hydro to replace the high capacity resin and carbon tanks for the building RO to address any residual issues for the purified water, that work will be completed on Tuesday 8/11. The system should be available while that work is completed. Until that time, give all taps in the building at least a few minutes to flush.

I have never seen anything like this before, but we have seen the same issue occuring in at least one other building during the same timeframe. 

Never hesitate to report anything anomolous you see in the building. If you think something seems weird in the building, it's worth investigating.

Thank you!

The next College Autism Network research presentation will be held on Tuesday,  Aug 11, at 12pm ET. 

Presenter: Jess Monahan, Ph.D. (Assistant Research Professor, University of Maryland, College Park)
 
Autistic College Students and Disclosure: Understanding Student Experiences and Factors Contributing to Decision Making
 
In this session, Dr. Jess Monahan will explore the complexity surrounding autistic college students and their decision to disclose their autistic identity. We will review the most current literature in the field, with a focus on a study conducted by Michaela Hodges-Fulton and Dr. Monahan. The presentation will wrap with thoughts on how we best support students in this decision-making process and a Q&A.

Meeting Link: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/99708176228

This event is not affiliated with UMBC.

The Neurodivergent Affinity Group holds a membership to the College Autism Network. 

To all Peoplesoft Campus Solutions Users:

Please note that the Campus Solutions system will be unavailable due to quarterly operating system maintenance.  The system will be unavailable this evening, between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM.  If this work finishes early, the system will be made available ahead of schedule.

Thank you for your patience as we perform these important system updates.  

Anyone have extra staplers? Happy to come pick one up!

UMBC CSEE Professor Justin Brooks will talk on Our Bodies, Our Minds in a Profs & Pints event at Section 771 in Baltimore on Monday, Aug, 17 from 6 pm to 8:30 pm. He will explore the relationship between our biology and our thought processes and how millions of years of evolution shaped the way our minds and bodies speak to each other. Get more information and purchase advanced tickets here.