Beginning on March 5, the Center for Careers and Internships (CCI) will launch a six-week pilot program of interactive workshops targeting first and second years. The workshops will seek to encourage students to identify areas they are passionate about by addressing the question “What matters to you?” before they transfer those interests to form meaningful – and rewarding – career paths.
Associate Director for Professional Career Development and advisor for Careers in the Common Good, Tracy Himmel Isham, said that the idea for the series of workshops began to take shape when students at the College expressed a lack of personal discourse outside of the classroom. “Students often come to me and say that no one ever has time on this campus to reflect on who they are and what they are passionate about,” she said. “Our theory with the ‘What Matters to You’ skills workshops is that the more you reflect on your past and who you are, the more meaningful your decisions can be.”
Together, the series of workshops encompass a diverse range of topics for discussion. Each individual workshop in the series has its own focus, and these will range from finding ways to form collaborative partnerships with individuals who share the same interests to identifying strategies for embracing family influences, but ultimately choosing one’s own purpose. In addition to self-reflection, the workshop series seeks to allude to larger underlying themes that include humanitarianism, civil engagement and career decisions, among others.
The first workshop of the series, called “Head + Heart = Hustle”, is an interactive exercise that challenges students to find ways to cultivate meaningful experiences by combining the skills they have acquired in the classroom with their own interests. “I like to think that the head component asks students to recognize the practical skills they have learned and practiced. The heart component of the workshop addresses the issues that get students out of bed in the morning. Bringing things to a confluence of head and heart is our end goal,” Himmel Isham said.
Workshops in the coming weeks will take on a similar interactive format, with students reflecting on prompts in small groups. The second session called “Know What You’ve Got; Know What You Need,” to be held on March 12, intends to build teamwork and networking skills.
“It’s important to not do everything on your own and find people that have similar interests by tapping into networks. Many successful organizations – such as Unite for Sight – have naturally evolved from open-minded approaches where students find themselves in the right place at the time and begin to share ideas,” Himmel Isham notes.
The Oratory Society will also co-present a workshop called “Telling Your Story” on March 1. Inspired by the format of TED talks and The Moth storytelling events, Himmel Isham hopes the workshop will make “students consider how they want people to remember them while simultaneously making them comfortable sharing and narrating their personal stories.”
Toward the end of the semester, the series will culminate with a workshop on April 3 called “Design Thinking: Your Future,” which will aim to bring together the ideas and skills from the previous meetings. The session will feature guest speaker Mr. Eugene Korsunskiy, the Senior Coordinate of Design Initiatives at the University of Vermont.
A graduate of Williams College and Stanford University, Mr. Korsunskiy is interested in creative educational start-ups and has also taught numerous courses at Stanford, including “Designing Your Life” and “The Designer’s Voice.”
