Experience Matters (ExM) is a web-based collection of internship and co-op experiences completed by Grand Valley students. The purpose is to share the value of experiential education to students, employers, faculty, staff, parents and the community at large.

To become an active department on the ExM website:

1. Appoint a Departmental Administrator who will manage your department’s ExM student submissions
2. Send the following appointed Departmental Administrator's information to Rachel Becklin in the Career Center, [email protected]:
   • First and last name
   • E-mail address
   • Major – this will be what students select on the submission form in order for the appropriate administrator to receive the submission
3. Communicate the opportunity to students. In order to receive quality responses for your department, we recommend requiring that submissions be made.

NOTE: If you do not want to appoint a Departmental Administrator, the Career Center will review the submissions for approval. Your students can still post their experiences on the website.

Departmental Administrator's Role

The Departmental Administrator manages the approval process. In order for a student’s submission to appear on the ExM website, the Departmental Administrator and the employer must first approve the content. The approval process takes place through the administrative site, making the process structured and user friendly.

Three steps are involved in the approval process:

1. When the student submits an experience and indicates they would like it published on the website, an automatic email will be sent to their internship supervisor asking for their approval (this is to ensure no proprietary information is inadvertently shared). If the student does not want the experience to appear on the website, an email notification will go directly to the Departmental Administrator, bypassing the supervisor.
2. After the employer accepts or declines publication to the website, the Departmental Administrator will receive an email notification that a new experience has been submitted. 
3. The Departmental Administrator can view and activate experiences by logging into www.gvsu.edu/experiencematters/admin with their GVSU username and password. Submissions can be published to the web, as well as marked as a spotlight experience, which shows up on the homepage.