Week 2: Assignment
1. Prepare for the empathy work.
2. Go out and talk to people.
Your goal is to find out as much as you can about the other person’s experience related to the school-to-work transition. Explore what his/her experiences have been in the past, how he/she felt during key events (for instance, job interview, first day of work, etc.), what aspects were enjoyable and which ones could be improved. Explore the practical aspects of the experience, but don’t stop there, and also inquire about the emotional aspects of it.
3. Process the data gathered via interviews using an Empathy Map.
4. Craft a problem statement.
Reflections before the assignment presentation:
I interviewed a college student in Business Administration and Information System at a very prestigious University in the city of Buenos Aires. The interview was interesting for both of us and he opened his heart to speak about his ideas, and feelings as well as his fear and battles.
After the interview, I also contacted an engineer in Massachusetts, USA, who works in Research and Development in a Multinational organisation. My idea was to see how he had conducted his school-to-work process to reflect on similarities and differences and also to get an overview of how he sees the process of hiring new employees.
As a result, I felt more confident to craft the problem statement for the stakeholder in my assignment. I found this really interesting and challenging at the same time.
I feel that when we have a very strong passion, we become very goal oriented and we can conduct the whole process with happiness and high motivation, however I could see that this might not be the usual case. After all, we choose what career we are going to follow we are only teenagers.
As I see it, process should begin way before college. Educators must be really aware of the importance of helping students discover their passions. And to achieve this goal, there’s a huge change which should take place for this 21st century Model of Education.
I feel we are going through a revolution in Education, and hopefully if we take it seriously and apply the necessary changes, like curriculum design, coaching, advising, project design, problem solving activities, considering alternative ways of assessing, we will all live in a better world. A world where students are happy at school and evolve to be successful in their working life.