MAP5004 · Designing your professional future

Overview

In this unit, you will explore how to intentionally design your career using principles of design thinking. This unit prepares you to proactively shape a career that aligns with your goals, values, and evolving aspirations. You will learn how to navigate complex and uncertain career pathways with creativity, adaptability, and confidence. The unit aims to support you in identifying your values, while developing practical strategies to align these with meaningful professional opportunities. You will engage with key design thinking concepts such as career experimentation, fostering adaptability through reframing, and iterative decision-making. Through a series of interactive workshops, you will participate in activities including ideation exercises, reflective tasks, and close engagement with peer groups that expose you to diverse perspectives and possibilities. You will also undertake guided independent activities, to test and refine your ideas. By the end of the unit, you will have developed a personalised, flexible approach to career planning, along with the skills to articulate your professional identity and adapt to changing opportunities.

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Assessment in this unit includes hurdle assessment tasks. Failure of any hurdle assessment task may result in failure of the unit.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Apply design thinking principles to career planning, using iterative problem-solving and user-centred approaches to navigate career challenges and opportunities.
2. Evaluate the alignment between personal values, professional identity and long-term career aspirations to inform sustainable or ongoing professional practice.
3. Explore diverse professional trajectories by applying ideation and prototyping approaches that leverage experimentation and adaptability within and beyond academia.
4. Evaluate the role of professional relationships and networking in advancing professional career development.
5. Integrate feedback, iteration, and decision-making frameworks to formulate strategic and sustainable career pathways.

Workload

18 hrs of face-to-face guided interactive workshops + 20 hours of offline directed work including online lecture content and career development exercises

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.