When I was a teenager back in the 2000s, I wanted to be an artist, an architect, a designer, a physiotherapist, an experimental scientist, a musician, or a professional athlete. I had no clue how to make any of these ideas happen except that I had to choose one school that would be the best fit for me. But, this seemed impossible.
The way we had to pick a school 20 years ago was by going through a book full of (short descriptions of) bachelor programs. This book didn’t make any sense to me because first of all, I wasn't able to visualise what any of these bachelor programs were going to teach me during those 3 years. And secondly, I wasn’t sure what to base my decision on. How was I suppose to choose one, based on what exactly?
Now 20 years later I have come to realise that what I needed back then was guidance. It would have made sense to have had a class in which we were taught how to explore our hobbies, interests, skills, priorities and ambitions and how to analyse and translate these insights into clear guidelines for decision making.
Instead my classmates and I got a book full of bachelor programs and when asked for it, a competency test, which showed me a very general overview of what I was supposedly good at: a little bit of everything.
When I am now talking to (parents of) teenagers, I find that the experience I had 20 years ago has not changed much. What has changed is the amount of information their teenage brain needs to filter each and every day. Which, as we all know, makes decision-making even harder. Can you imagine, walking around with a brain that is still under construction trying to make sense of the world, while at the same time being bombarded 24/7 with a constant stream of social media posts that tell you what to (be) like? I cannot. But now, at 35 years old I do have the expertise my younger self desperately needed when trying to figure out what school to choose: one that would fit my skills, interests and ambitions best. With a detour that lasted 2 years I have eventually made a good decision with pursuing Industrial Design, but I wish for others to skip the detour.
This is why I have created a guided step-by-step course for teenagers, It's called Design Your Future Career and offers an accessible, experimental and fun online live course that provides teens with the right design tools & guidance for crafting a career path that fit their personality. On November 1st - which is in 2,5 weeks - this course will kick-off. In the short 2-min video below I explain what we'll be doing and how we'll go about crafting a career path during our 8 classes together.
Since each participant will receive hardcopy class materials, 16 OCT 2023 is the last day to enrol for this course. With the promo code TEENAGE20 you’ll get a 20% discount; which is €85 discount for group participants and €170 discount for individual guidance.
You can find all of the course information on the website, which is also the place to enrol.
I really hope to see you there. If you're reading this at a later time and are interested in joining this course in the future you can contact me here: hello@alta-made.com
Thank you kindly for taking the time to read my story and letting me share this teenage course with you.
Make it a beautiful day wherever you might be.
Warmly,
Iris