Real-world skills. Bulldog mindset.
At Drake University, your education extends beyond what you learn in the classroom—it’s also about how you show up in the world. True-Blue Skills are the essential, career-ready traits that help you stand out to employers and thrive in every part of your life. These are the skills that shape confident communicators, ethical leaders, and thoughtful collaborators.
True-Blue Skills are infused into every part of your Drake experience. Whether you’re presenting in a class, solving a problem at an internship, or leading a student organization, you’re building a foundation of skills employers value—and skills the world needs.
What Are True-Blue Skills
True-Blue Skills are a set of ten core skills that reflect how you think, interact, and lead. Developed with input from employers across a wide range of industries, these skills are behaviors that help you grow into the job candidate and employee who gets noticed and makes a positive difference.
Drake students develop these skills through hands-on learning, mentorship, leadership experience, and reflection. By the time you graduate, you’ll have more than a degree. You’ll have a story to tell about who you are and what you can do.
The True-Blue Skills
We don’t expect you to master all of these on day one, and some you may already have experience in. These are the skills you’ll grow throughout your time at Drake:
Exercise sound reasoning, self-reflection of assumptions, and careful consideration of evidence to analyze issues, make decisions, and overcome problems.
Build collaborative relationships with individuals representing diverse cultures, racesability, ages, genders, religions, lifestyles, and viewpoints. Strive to increase ability to work within a team and across differences to come to an agreement.
Demonstrate personal accountability, and integritiy; act responsibly with the interests of the community in mind. Recognize and learn from mistakes.
Express ideas to others in an effective manner in verbal and written forms. Read with thoughtfulness and understanding. Listen to and respond appropriately to divergent points of view. Understand the impact of non-verbal communication.
Remain up to date, intellectually curious, and open-minded about technology; embrace and encourage digital initiatives; demonstrate ability to lead, and be a part of, dispersed teams though use of technology. Understand and demonstrate the appropriate and ethical use of technology.
Leverage the strengths of self and others to influence achievement of common goals. Use interpersonal skills to guide and motivate; and organize, prioritize, and delegate work. Navigate though conflict with civility and emotional intelligence.
Value, respect, and learn from those with lived experiences that differe from one's own. Identify elements that create diversity, inclusion, exclusion and privilege, and reflect on personal biases. Demonstrate empathy and willingness to view issues from other's points of view in appreciation and sensitivity to diversity.
Use design thinking and curisity to identify creative solutiions/ideas, experiment, explore multiple forward-thinking strategies, and apply knowledge to move to action.
Ask questions and investigate the "why" behind issues. Actively listen. Appropriately challenge the status quo and gain new perspectives though various interactions. Embrace feedback and demonstrate a persistend desire to learn, reflect, and evolve.
Identify and align interests, values, and strengths to help build meaningful personal lives, professional accomplishments, and responsible global citizenship.
How We Nurture These Skills
True-Blue Skills aren’t just something you check off a list. They’re built over time, through real experiences. At Drake, we help you nurture these skills by:
- Reflecting on your strengths and where you need to grow.
- Offering career and networkings events where you can practice new skills.
- Supporting campus and community involvement through student organizations and service-learning.
- Sharing feedback from employers, internship providers, and other partners who hire Drake students and graduates.
- Providing workshops, tools, and one-on-one support through our Career Services team.
For Employers
We know what employers are looking for—because we asked them. True-Blue Skills were developed in partnership with professionals who hire and lead in a wide range of industries. Drake students graduate with real-world experiences and the habits of mind that turn potential into impact.
Want to connect with our students or support skill development through a partnership or event? Contact our team, we’d love to work with you.