Becoming You: Crafting Your Authentic Career

Catalog description

The objective of this class is to guide students through the complex, exhilarating, and sometimes surprising journey of discovering the right career for them, one rich with opportunity, meaning, and impact. “Becoming You” grows out of the premise that the happiest, most fulfilling lives are those lived in your “Area of Destiny,” the intersection of your best and most unique skills, your deepest and most authentic values, and the economy’s most rewarding spaces. On many levels, the Area of Destiny construct is intuitive – of course you should be doing what you’re good at, what you love, and what the world needs. But what’s less intuitive is how often smart, ambitious, and often enlightened people end up with lives and careers that are less deliberate and joyful, and more accidental and stressful, than they’d ever wanted. With readings from memoirs that are as illuminating as they are brutally honest (Tina Fey, Steve Wozniak, and Phil Knight), spell-binding documentaries about trailblazers such as Dr. Dre and Iris Apfel (to name a few), as well as classical works about identity by great philosophers and social scientists, “Becoming You” will explore career journeys that are provocative – and instructive. But the career journey at the center of this class is yours. Where have you been and how has it shaped you? What are you dying to leave behind, and what is ahead that scares you? What is your unedited dream of a life? What are your non-negotiables around lifestyle? Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? And what about money…really? Analytic tools, assessment surveys, and exercises will be employed in each student’s personal exploration process, along with team activities, writing assignments, and guest speakers from careers paths both conventional and unorthodox. The course will conclude with a capstone project in which each student will identify their own…