Center for Innovation and Digital Learning/AU professor Martha Mishoe, the lead instructor in a pilot online course, called the one-on-one coaching “exceptional.”

“Lloyd adjusts their career coaching to meet the specific needs of my students,” she said.

When students work with Lloyd, their career advisor gets to know each student and creates a personalized career plan that includes specific action steps to take. Students visualize their career plan on the Lloyd online platform and communicate with their career advisor via chat built into the platform (along with phone calls).

All resources for students are in one place in the Lloyd platform, where they see their personalized plan, use the resources, and communicate with their career advisor.

A student in one of the pilot courses gave her Lloyd Career Advisor high praise.

“It was a fantastic experience and gave me a whole new perspective,” she said.

The Lloyd career advising platform is currently embedded into select online and graduate courses at AU to closely tie the learning experience with career preparation. Students  receive their own career advisor and ongoing, personalized career planning to support their unique journey.

According to polling firm Gallup, this personalized attention is exactly what students want. Gallup research recently indicated that students who strongly agree that their education was relevant to their work and daily lives are 5.5 times more likely to strongly agree that their education was worth the cost.

“For many students, career advising is an afterthought to their central goal—obtaining a degree—which can put them at a disadvantage when they enter the job market,” said Lloyd cofounder Dan Gusz. “Lloyd helps students be more intentional about their career goals by working directly with a career advisor who can help them think through their career possibilities and next steps while they’re still in school.”

About Lloyd

Lloyd is a software company that empowers working professionals to find more meaning in their careers. Lloyd does this work by providing structure, accountability, and feedback, helping individuals to navigate and develop their careers with one-on-one guidance and support.

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Upstate children with mobility disabilities are enjoying adapted power wheel cars built by a group of students from the ÎçŇąľçłˇSchool of Physical Therapy.

With a $10,000 grant from The AnMed Foundation, the car kits were ordered and outfitted so that children with mobility disabilities can safely drive them. Dr. Dave Searight, physical therapist at AnMed Health, led the charge in getting the cars and equipment needed to outfit them for the children and Dr. Sue Denninger, ÎçŇąľçłˇ physical therapy professor, put together a team of students to build the cars and customize them according to each child’s specific needs.

The idea for the cars comes from researchers at the University of Delaware who realized no such ride-on devices were commercially available. They started Go Baby Go, an initiative aimed at developing the cars so that children could get around in ways other than being pushed along in a stroller by a parent or caregiver. Go Baby Go has expanded across the nation and globally, and AnMed Health and ÎçŇąľçłˇ shared an interest in bringing these unique cars to Upstate children who needed them.

In addition to providing independence and being fun to drive, the cars are the right size for children who are too small to use a power wheelchair, which is also much more expensive.

“They may need more support in the car or a different type of on-off switch or ability to steer,” said Denninger, adding that they start with regular off-the-shelf cars from online retailer Amazon.com, and add modifications.

“The first part is just building and putting together the car, then the second part is to rewire it to operate safely, using a switch that’s easier for kids with mobility disabilities to activate,” Denninger said. “The most common switch used is a big red button; it’s very simple and sensitive. Often kids have upper extremity trouble using their arms and their hands, and so this allows them to really have control of it when it starts and stops.”

Denninger added that since some children have difficulty steering, they get radio-controlled (RC) cars so that a parent or a caregiver could drive the car as needed to steer, turn off or on. In addition to the wiring, students also used PVC pipe and pool noodles to add body support customized to a child’s needs and for their safety.

According to Dr. Martha Hinman, chair of AU’s School of Physical Therapy, this project is but one of many opportunities in which PT students live up to the program motto of “Serving Him by Serving Others.”

Details about Go Baby Go can be found .

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