Just recently I've noticed a couple of things in my game.
1. It seems like all party goals have to be met to get a gold medal. In the past, I could usually not complete one goal and still get gold.
2. I've tested this a couple of times. A Sim with the connections reward does start on Level 4, but the corresponding career rewards do not unlock. My Sim entered the Science career and I noticed the Chemistry station wasn't available. Even after getting promoted it still didn't unlock.
I have cleared caches and repaired the game.
Edited By Playalot to Add:The Connections Reward Trait not unlocking career items is a bug.
If you are experiencing this please add a
'Me Too' on the bug report
*Work-Around:*As a workaround for some of you facing the issue, you can make temporary use of cheats to get access to your rewards:
Ctrl+Shift+c to access console, then follow these steps (type Enter after each command):
1. testingcheats on
2. bb.ignoregameplayunlocksentitlement true
3. -> place your items / get your rewards (you might want to save your game and reload after that)
4. bb.ignoregameplayunlocksentitlement false
5. testingcheats off