Future Scenarios
Purpose: This activity is intended to allow you the opportunity to consider the alternative paths of a specific major or career choice. This activity is best used when you are trying to decide between a very select few options. It is intended to help solidify what a teaching degree, supply chain management degree, or any other major/career choice (you fill in the blank) means for your likely future. You can build ideal, likely, and less than ideal paths that a specific career choice would lead you down. In many ways it is similar to writing an articulation agreement, except that it does not ask what criteria you will judge a major or career by, but rather consider what a major or career decision will mean for you.
As a result of this activity you will be able to:
- Describe what a specific degree will likely mean for your future.
- Discuss what you think is likely to happen given a set of decisions you make.
- Make decisions between competing major and career options.
- Prepare to verify your assumptions through informational interviews, etc.
Process:
- Make sure you are considering a few specific majors (i.e. between Business Management and Political Science).
- Draw a map of where these majors are likely to take you.
- Analyze the map and consider the likelihood of each outcome.
- Consider what option appears most attractive given the scenarios you have listed.
- This activity is best applied in connection with some fact finding work (info interviews, research, OOH, etc.), whether before or after the activity to make sure that your assumptions are feasible and likely.
Example Map:
