As students prepare to make their mark professionally, they will consider their dream vacations, work culture, relationships and other factors to create an action plan in the Create Your Dream Life workshop.
Texas A&M’s Career Center will be introducing the new workshop on Thursday at the MSC in Room 1400 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Career Coordinator Meredith McDowell will be leading the workshop, helping students create an action plan for reaching the dream life they envision by considering several factors that students desire for their futures.
McDowell works with general studies, university studies and undecided students. Much of her work as a career coordinator consists of meeting with students one-on-one, giving presentations and workshops. The largest aspect of planning for this workshop was creating the worksheets and considering important areas for a dream life such as salary, vacations, location, work culture and relationships, she said.
“I hope they’ll have a clearer picture of what they want their dream life to look like and feel confident in what steps they need to take to make it happen,” McDowell said.
McDowell said she created the workshop because she enjoyed thinking about her own dream life and thought that the students would as well. McDowell said anyone from the Career Center can create new programs, which has become one of her favorite things to do. She hopes this particular workshop can continue in future semesters.
The Creating Your Dream Life workshop is one of five being introduced this semester, McDowell said. The other workshops that the Career Center is introducing are Discovering Your Values, Interests and Skills; Thinking of Changing Your Major? The Career Center Can Help! (Webinar); Discovering Different Major Options & Translating Them Into Your Dream Career; Self-Care & Mindfulness Throughout the Major & Career Decisions Journey; and Family & the Major/Career Decision.
“I’d love for anyone and everyone to come,” McDowell said. “I’m really excited about it.”
Public health pre-dental sophomore Darby Johnson is a student worker at the office of professional school advising. She said that at a school as large as A&M, there are plenty of students on campus that could benefit from making an action plan toward their ideal life.
“Personally, nothing is more satisfying and calming than to have a plan,” Darby said. “They can see advisers and assess and get where they want to go.”
Darby said students come into college with general goals but sometimes have little idea of how to achieve them. She’s noticed students come into the Career Center feeling lost and stressed, but said they tend to feel better and have a plan after seeing an adviser.
“Make appointments,” Darby said. “We’ll help you with your future, you can come back even after you graduate. We’re always here for any student.”
University studies senior Sarah Johnson said the visiting Career Center was helpful to her, and even though she still felt overwhelmed, she knew what she had to do.
“I think that sometimes we don’t realize how much work it takes to do all the things that we want to do,” Johnson said. “Realizing that might be kind of hard, but it might also be really motivating and helpful to see what we actually need to do to get where we want to go.”