Ellise LaMotte, Tufts University’s associate provost for student success, shared insights on the school’s recently launched JUMP-IN program, for which she is lead organizer. The responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
U.S. News: What is the JUMP-IN program, and how did it come to be?
LaMotte: JUMP-IN – short for Jumbo Undergraduate Mission for Personal Insight and Navigation, in recognition of Tufts’ mascot, Jumbo the Elephant – is a new Tufts spring break program designed to give undergraduates an immersive, weeklong look at potential professional pathways through hands-on experiences led by Tufts faculty across multiple schools.
- In this, its inaugural year, the program offered five tracks connected to medicine, design problem-solving, global policy, dentistry and nutrition science, allowing students to step directly into real or simulated professional environments and begin testing ideas about their future careers.
- The program grew out of a recognition that students often form early assumptions about their professional futures without having meaningful opportunities to test them.
- JUMP-IN was intentionally created to give students the opportunity to experiment, explore and build community while engaging deeply with disciplines they are curious about but may not yet fully understand.
U.S. News: Experiential learning is the bedrock of JUMP-IN. Can you talk about the importance of that – both in the program itself and for undergraduates as a whole?
LaMotte: Experiential learning allows students to move beyond abstract ideas of careers and instead engage directly with what professional work actually feels like. For undergraduates, experiential learning provides a critical bridge between academic study and life after college. By learning through doing – and reflecting on those experiences – students gain practical skills, confidence and a clearer sense of direction.
- JUMP-IN exemplifies how experiential education can empower students to make more informed choices about coursework, majors and long-term goals by grounding those decisions in lived experience rather than speculation.
- Students who participate in the program take vital signs in medical simulation labs, work with dental impressions, participate in policy simulations and volunteer with community organizations – all experiences meant to replicate the pace, circumstances and decision-making of real professional settings.
- This level of immersion helps students assess not only their interests but also whether the realities of a field align with their expectations.
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U.S. News: One of the great values of JUMP-IN is the opportunity for exploration. What advice would you give to students who might still be exploring their path of study and are less certain about their professional aspirations?
LaMotte: Uncertainty is not a weakness – it is precisely the reason programs like JUMP-IN exist. Students who are still exploring should approach experiences like JUMP-IN with curiosity rather than pressure to figure everything out. As we emphasize to our students, trying something hands-on can be just as valuable in confirming what isn’t a good fit as it is in discovering what is.
My advice is to treat exploration as an active process:
- Ask questions, engage fully, reflect honestly, and talk with peers and mentors you meet along the way.
- JUMP-IN is designed to be a low-stakes environment for testing assumptions, building self-knowledge and realizing that professional paths often evolve over time.
- Taking advantage of those opportunities early can make the rest of a student’s academic journey more intentional and confident.
