Life Design is an innovative, hands-on process for tackling life's transitions and discovering amazing possibilities.

Its engaging methodology and fun tools will help you get unstuck and build a meaningful life. 

 

The WCSU Career Success Center now has workshops and classes that can teach you the essentials of Designing Your Life (or “DYL”) and move forward with a fun testing ground to bring your priorities into focus. Pioneered by Stanford design faculty, these methods have been publicized in best-selling books by professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. 

Through the basics of Life Design, you can learn how proven design-thinking mindsets like curiosity, trying stuff/prototyping, reframing problems, and asking for help (aka collaboration) can help you design and build your career in the face of all the unknowns.

Life design is a FUN testing ground to bring your priorities into focus:

Work, Play, Love, and Health

Let your curiosity run wild, discover new perspectives and prototype new life experiences

Life Design is an interactive process that helps you:

Know Yourself Image

Know yourself

Empathize with Situations Image

Empathize with situations

Challenge Assumptions Image

Challenge assumptions

Redefine Problems Image

Redefine problems

Identify Alternative Solutions Image

Identify alternative solutions

For Life Design, we start with the most challenging project you face: YOUR CAREER; and what to do with your life!

Design thinking is a creative process used by the worlds most successful organizations to solve and transform challenging problems by building a way forward.

It’s about getting unstuck. Learn how dysfunctional thinking holds you back. Life design gives you options to build your way forward.

Your mindsets are important! Be curious. Try stuff. Reframe problems. Know that it’s a process. Build your design team and ask for help

The Building Blocks of Design Thinking and Life Design

Life Design Path Image

Dysfunctional Belief

  • Major = Career
  • What’s your passion
  • "I have to design my life myself"
  • "You should know where you are going by now"

The Reframe

  • Your major is not your career
  • You can have many “likes” to explore
  • You live and design your life in collaboration with others
  • It’s never too late to design your life and make changes

Keep each of these mindsets at the forefront:

click each to learn more

Reframe Logo

REFRAME

Curiosity Logo

CURIOSITY

Mindful of Process Logo

MINDFUL OF PROCESS

Radical Collaboration Logo

RADICAL COLLABORATION

Bias Toward Action Logo

BIAS TOWARD ACTION

Life Design Workshops

Designing Your Life Workshop:

 

Our classes combine theory and practical approaches to give you valuable tools and questions to help set your compass, explore options, and develop a career that works for you. Designing Your Life (DYL) events are led by WCSU staff who have received DYL training and curriculum from Stanford University. Classes can range from a few hours, to a semester, depending on how much help and support you would like, in order to understand these valuable techniques.  This video from Burnett and Evans at Stanford gives a good overview of the concept:  

Find More Ways To Design Your Life Here:

Big thanks to all the students who participated and found joy in our Career Education classes this semester! Unfortunately, our classes will not be available this upcoming Spring term.