81550 Designing Your Future
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particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source
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Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Pass fail, no marks
Description
This subject introduces design thinking ideas, tools, and methods students need to create a successful career and a life of thriving. It is based on one of Stanford University’s most popular courses and the work they do in their Life Design Lab and is targeted towards students who want to explore career and life design as part of an intentional path into their futures. Students learn the fundamentals and stages of life design and how to apply them to their lives and careers, as well as how to get more out of opportunities and how to make decisions around their careers. Design thinking principles such as reframing, curiosity, bias towards action, mindfulness of process, radical collaboration and storytelling are introduced to create mindsets that enable career and life decision making and change. Students identify when they work at their best, and how to approach an uncertain future with positivity and conviction. In addition, they develop an understanding of how to incorporate lasting and sustainable social impact in their careers. Students are able to ideate and prototype some ideas and to explore their ideas further. Undergraduate students from all degree backgrounds and stages of their studies benefit from this subject.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:
| 1. | Apply the Design Thinking process and mindsets as a framework for problem solving in life and career |
|---|---|
| 2. | Develop an understanding of the contexts and critical employability skills required to secure and sustain meaningful work |
| 3. | Create strategies for exploring personalised career pathways |
| 4. | Engage in critical reflection as a tool for building self-awareness |
| 5. | Recognise and identify constraints and insights that can influence meaningful change |
Teaching and learning strategies
This subject is offered in face-to-face mode on campus and makes use of self-paced asynchronous learning through Canvas materials before and during the subject. Students engage in a range of interactive activities and tools based on design thinking principles such as reframing, curiosity, bias towards action, mindfulness of process, radical collaboration and storytelling to create mindsets that enable learning in the classroom. Learning is based on life design processes (accept, empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test) that are introduced with practical exercises. Students get regular feedback in problem-based learning tasks and undertake deep reflection around worldviews and workviews with feedback from peers and their instructor. Early feedback will be provided in class.
Content (topics)
- Learn the fundamentals of applying design thinking to people’s lives
- Gain a thorough understanding of strengths and preferred ways of working
- Learn how to explore opportunities and network with others
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Portfolio of Life Design activities
| Intent: | This assessment engages students in an ongoing process of reflection witht the class activities and their application to their future careers |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 1, 3, 4 and 5 |
| Type: | Reflection |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 40% |
| Length: | min. 1200 words |
Assessment task 2: My Future Self Prototype
| Intent: | This assessment engages students in a journey of discovery and possibilities of futures selves and their impact on others. |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 1, 2, 3 and 5 |
| Type: | Presentation |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 60% |
| Length: | individual presentations around 10-15 minutes written summaries not more than 1000 words |
Minimum requirements
Students need to submit all assessment parts and achieve at least 50% in all assessments to pass the subject.