The employment landscape is changing rapidly, and what defines career readiness is changing as well. However, one thing remains clear: students who engage in career exploration early achieve greater success in finding a path that brings them joy. But this doesn’t mean that students should be stressing about finding the “perfect” summer job or internship. In fact, rushing to commit to a particular career path can be detrimental. Students should be taking time to understand themselves and the opportunities that exist in order to be able to make well-informed decisions about their futures. This means leading with curiosity and prototyping possible futures early and often. What do I mean by prototyping? I’ll explain.
As the bestselling book Designing Your Life proposes, applying design thinking to one’s life can help solve “wicked” problems related to living a joyful and purposeful life. The authors encourage readers to ideate wildly about different possible futures and then choose a few options to prototype—or try out. Before committing and investing in one solution—or life path—it’s necessary to try out ideas in quick and easy ways.
The purpose of a prototype is to gather data about something that interests you. Similar to when engineers build prototypes to test a new product design, when people are designing their lives, they can prototype to test some options they are considering. Life design prototyping is about leading with curiosity, asking good questions, confronting our biases, and iterating rapidly so we can imagine possible futures for ourselves.
Designing Your Life outlines two types of life design prototypes: conversations and experiences. Prototype conversations (also known as life design or exploratory career conversations) occur when someone reaches out to a person working in an area of interest to find out if there is something from their experience that resonates with them—or turns them off. Prototype experiences can take the form of job shadowing, conducting research, participating in a group project, or completing an internship.
Summer can be a great time to prototype—even if a student already has a summer experience lined up. The Career Center has a suite of resources that make prototyping easy. We encourage students, starting in year one, to connect with alumni on Eagle Exchange to set up conversations or job shadows. Students can read about how to create a profile and how to find a mentor using our Guide. Additionally, if students are nervous about what to say when they reach out, they can reference our networking page. Connecting with an alum in a field of interest could spark ideas about possible prototype experiences.
If a student is interested in committing meaningful time during the summer to career readiness and exploration, we encourage them to register for the Praxis program. Praxis is a free self-guided, eight-week virtual program designed to help students identify and develop the skills most sought after by employers. Students can complete the program from anywhere on their own time alongside a summer job, internship, or other commitments. Along with skill development, there are structured activities prompting students to reflect on their skills, interests, and values, and to connect with professionals in areas of interest.
As always, Career Center coaches are available all summer. Students can schedule appointments through Handshake or access our extensive digital resources via our website. If your student is interested in learning more about applying design thinking to their lives, encourage them to register for our one-credit course Designing Your Career. Two sections of the course will be offered this fall, and rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors interested in applying design thinking to their lives are welcome to register.
“For most people, passion comes after they try something, discover they like it, and develop mastery—not before. To put it more succinctly: passion is the result of a good life design, not the cause.” ― Bill Burnett, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life