Centre for Career Development helps students integrate SDGs into career planning

Monday, August 25, 2025

This article was written by Erika Yegorov, Kolette Wallace, Dharini Shan, Sargun Madan, Sarah Jagessar, Abi Ganeshwaran, and the CCD Green Office team.

Centre for Career Development (CCD) is helping students navigate career paths that align with the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From sustainable business and environmental careers to social entrepreneurship and ethical industries, the CCD is providing students with the resources they need to build meaningful and impactful careers.

Furthermore, all of CCD’s co-op students complete CEE’s SDG at Work workbook with the goal of integrating the SDGs into a tangible, immersive experiential learning experience. Students complete a term project that focuses on their co-op position and the SDGs. Here are some examples of the SDG projects completed by our client service, communications and events co-op students in 2025:

  • Designing signs and informative material to educate people on the 17 UN SDGs.
  • Developing an interactive game to engage learners at the CCD client service desk as a way of gamifying SDG education.
  • Hosting co-op student events in CEE that support SDG 3 (Good health and wellbeing) at the workplace.
Posterboard with sticky notes from SDG brainstorming activity

Each term, CCD co-op students also host an SDG Awareness Booth in the Student Life Centre. The primary goals of the booth are to:

  • Educate students about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
  • Encourage reflection on global issues and local impact.
  • Promote student involvement and individual actions to support the SDGs.

This spring term, the booth featured several interactive elements to engage passersby, including:

  • A spinning wheel challenge, where participants answered SDG-related questions or completed small tasks tied to specific goals.
  • A reflection board, where students could write responses to thought-provoking questions about sustainability, equity, and community action.

CCD’s co-op students are an integral part of how we support sustainability on campus and educate the student population about the SDGs. For more information about our SDG projects, you can reach out to careers@uwaterloo.ca.