Rensselaer Career Center Partners with Unison for Away Experiences

By Monique Gleason

The Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute continues to strategically build partnerships with companies to create an array of opportunities for students to pursue as part of The Arch at Rensselaer.

During The Arch, all students must spend a fall or spring semester of their junior year participating in an off-campus Individual Learning Experience (ILE), which could take the form of an internship or co-op, international or national opportunity (i.e., study abroad or study at another U.S. institution), or research, civic engagement, or a self-designed experience.

Many students choose to pursue an internship or co-op at one of the leading companies partnered with CCPD. One notable partnership Rensselaer cultivated is with Unison. Headquartered in Sterling, Virginia, Unison is a computer software company that provides software suites and insight platforms to program office, acquisition, financial assistance, and government contract professionals. For more than 30 years, Unison has guided their customers in systems implementation, application integration, operation and maintenance, training, data science, and cloud services.

When asked what appeals to them about students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Unison human resources team said, “RPI students have been some of our best and brightest recruits. They are typically mature candidates with excellent exposure to real-world scenarios and are always eager to learn and participate.”

Unison recruits computer science, information technology and web science, and business students for fall and spring internships. They actively participate in recruiting at Rensselaer through career fairs and information sessions.

With a very special culture, the name Unison represents who they are, a company that works together to achieve their goals. “Everyone at Unison is always eager and willing to help out peers across the company in any way possible to ensure that we are all doing our best work. Walking down the hallways (or on Zoom or teams meetings now!), you will come across peers who have been with Unison for five, 10, 15, or even 25-plus years. Unison offers the ability to always challenge their team members to help them grow in their careers,” said the human resources team at Unison.