What if students could stop worrying about finding the perfect career and start designing a life that fits their goals?
The University of Vermont’s Department of Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE) is offering CDAE 1990: Design Your Life: Blueprints for Impact, a new one-credit winter session course that uses Stanford’s design thinking framework to help students explore their futures and turn ideas into action.
Taught by Lindsey Bouzan, a Ph.D. student in UVM’s Sustainable Development Policy, Economics, and Governance (SDPEG) program, the asynchronous online course helps students navigate questions about choosing a major, finding internships and preparing for life after graduation. Students will challenge conventional ideas about career planning, explore three different five-year futures and learn how to test ideas before committing significant time or money.
“Design Your Life turns this concept around and gives you the agency and tools to decide what it is that you want, and if you don’t know, gives you permission to figure it out along the way,” Bouzan said. “We’re all just making it up as we go along. But having a framework and tools to return to again and again to help us figure out the path we want - that’s a process I find most aligned with reality.”
Through weekly videos, hands-on activities and reflection, students will develop greater clarity about their goals and leave the course with a concrete action plan for what comes next. The course also encourages students to step outside their comfort zones, experiment with new possibilities and view setbacks as opportunities to learn and adapt.
The course is open to UVM degree-seeking and PACE students. Enrollment is limited to 20 students.
Course: CDAE 1990: Design Your Life: Blueprints for Impact
Credits: 1
Format: Asynchronous online
Instructor: Lindsey Bouzan
Contact: Lindsey.Bouzan@uvm.edu
Students can consult the UVM Schedule of Courses for winter session registration details.