Atlantic City, N.J. — As the Stockton Atlantic City Summer Experience: Live-Work-Learn program enters its fourth year, not only are students getting to live for free, work in local industry and learn about career readiness — they also are getting full-time jobs after graduation.

“Having the opportunity to gain an internship and then have it evolve into a full-time job, especially with how things are right now for most people postgraduation, I feel very fortunate,” said Emma Martin, a 2025 Political Science graduate. She’s now the Office and Operations Manager for the Chelsea Economic Development Corporation in Atlantic City after working with the group last summer. “And it’s a job that I really enjoy doing.”

The Summer Experience — dubbed “Live-Work-Learn” — has offered hundreds of Stockton University students paid jobs with Atlantic City businesses, campus housing covered by the employers, and a series of career readiness training modules focused on teamwork, leadership, critical thinking and character development.

“I don’t think I would have had anywhere near the same job experience that I have now, and I don’t think I would have had as high of a career trajectory as I do now without this program,” said Michael Mora, a 2025 Business Administration graduate who works as an assistant manager at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.

Up to 600 students applied for this summer’s program with 200 working for 12 employers in Atlantic City and Galloway Township, said Brian K. Jackson, Stockton’s vice president for Community Engagement.

“One of the original goals of the Live-Work-Learn program was to serve as an experience that would help keep talented students in the area after graduation and to expose them to career opportunities they may not have expected or knew existed,” Jackson said.

Martin didn’t even know that the Chelsea EDC’s office was inside Stockton’s Kesselman Hall before landing a job there in the program the summer before her senior year. The Chelsea EDC boosts economic development in the section of Atlantic City where Stockton’s campus resides. The nonprofit holds community events, provides money to improve business facades, helps to address public safety and code violations, facilitates beautification projects and offers renters home-buying grants.

Martin continued to work part time at the Chelsea EDC during her senior year at Stockton, and then she accepted a full-time job after graduation. In her new role, Martin manages the nonprofit’s finances, helps out at events and trains and oversees this summer’s Live-Work-Learn intern.

“The mission of our organization really spoke to me because my mom was originally from Atlantic City and she loved it here so much,” said the Brigantine resident who grew up in Hammonton. “I really wanted to be a part of the great changes that the EDC is making in Atlantic City.”

Mora landed his first job at Borgata the summer before his sophomore year through Live-Work-Learn, and he’s worked there full time ever since.

“I get student loan reimbursement from Borgata. I have benefits and health insurance. I have job security throughout the year, all thanks to Live-Work-Learn,” said the Mount Olive native, who oversees in-room dining, the Sunroom Lounge and the Outdoor Pool. “I have year-round income I can rely on, which has definitely allowed me to pursue things.”

One of those things was to enroll in Stockton’s Master of Business Administration program starting this summer. And thanks to the Atlantic City Summer Experience’s expansion to include graduate students this year, he was able to continue to live on campus this summer.

Mora hopes to finish his master’s by December, and in the meantime, he has spent a lot of the summer training undergraduates in the Live-Work-Learn program.

“I would say that about 60% of my workforce right now are Stockton students. It’s very interesting to have people that are going through the same journey that I did,” he said. “They are starting out, and it’s kind of nice to be able to tell them the experiences I’ve learned over the years and how to better themselves and what to do and not to do.”

In addition to expanding to graduate students, opportunities for transfer students were added this year, Jackson said. Students in the Transfer Pathways program between Stockton and participating New Jersey community colleges can apply to the program if they’ve received their associates degree before enrolling in classes for the fall semester.

Jessica Gross is a transfer from Atlantic Cape Community College and is using Live-Work-Learn to get acclimated to campus life. Before enrolling as a Criminal Justice major in the fall, she’s working as a security guard at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. She patrols the casino floor, checks IDs of potentially underage gamblers, works on crowd control and has learned card and dice destruction procedures.

“They aren’t treating us like seasonal employees,” the Egg Harbor Township resident said. “It’s not like, ‘Well, you’re only here for three months, you don’t need to learn that.’ They’re saying, ‘No, you need to learn it all.’”

Gross has especially loved dorm life with her three roommates at Parkview Hall.

“Everybody’s so friendly. We get along really well,” she said. “It’s nice because I’ve spent only a little bit of time on campus, but by doing (Live-Work-Learn) in the summer I’m more adapted to what dorm life will be like.”

Jackson sees the addition of transfer and graduate students as natural extensions of growing the program, possibly to include additional employers outside of Atlantic City.

“We would like to get accounting, finance, utility and law firms on board. And with such a strong interest from our students in health care fields, we would like to offer additional opportunities similar to AtlantiCare, one of our employers in the program,” Jackson said. “Live-Work-Learn serves as a perfect training ground for our students to develop their professional skills and for the employers to shape our students into future, prepared employees.”

— Story by Mark Melhorn, photos by Susan Allen