Charles River Campus of UMass Amherst

The Charles River Campus in Newton is UMass Amherst’s Greater Boston hub for career-connected learning. The campus combines coursework with internships, employer-sponsored projects and job-skills training. Students in a LEAD program spend a semester interning in Greater Boston while completing academic coursework, learning on the job, growing their networks and building their resumes along the way, before returning to their studies with professional experience.

First-year students can start through Career Launch, a fall semester program for admitted UMass Amherst students. They complete general education requirements, explore how their studies connect to careers and work on employer-sponsored projects, then move to the Amherst campus in the spring. One student’s stay at the campus led to a software engineering internship at Whoop, and faculty have included former U.S. Ambassador Claire Cronin.

What to Know

• LEAD stands for Linking Employment to Academic Development.
• The campus dining commons is part of UMass Dining, which has been ranked No. 1 for ten years running.
• Innovation partners on campus include Prospect Growth, whose harvested corn has been served in the dining commons.
• Virtual information sessions and prospective student days are held for LEAD.