Please note that this workshop is exclusively for AUP Master’s students.
Graduate students face special challenges as they prepare for their professional lives. They are either building on existing skills and going deeper by continuing their studies in a specific area or broadening their knowledge by branching out to a discipline that is different from their undergraduate degree. Many graduate students are going through a career pivot and some have substantial work experience in another field. Meanwhile, even if they come into their programs with a clear sense of what they want to springboard into—and that is not the case for everyone—their programs are so rich with new possibility that it may feel overwhelming to try to identify potential target careers. Graduate degrees are short and intense, spanning from 18 months to 2 years, and that does not leave students with a lot of time to reflect on the changes they are undergoing and to position themselves accordingly.
Enter Design Thinking. It began as a tool used by engineers, but it is now recognized as a useful method for tackling all sorts of problems. The “problem” addressed in this workshop is: What are my short-and long-term post-graduation objectives, and what skill and/or experience gaps do I need to address while at AUP to achieve them?
The Designing Your Edge (DYE) workshop for Master’s students is designed to help students get their bearings during the first months at AUP. They will reflect critically upon their previous professional, academic, and personal experiences. They will think concretely about their post-graduation aspirations. And they will identify the most strategic ways to invest their time in curricular and co-curricular experiences at AUP to achieve their short and long-term goals.
