“We want people to understand why education is important and how it can help them decide their career.”
Done by: Sadaf Khan-MISIS: M00696459
Our Aim:
Is to encourage students to study further and understand why education is important. We want to help them make a decision about the career they want to pursue in the future.
Roles:
Sadaf Khan- Interviewer and observer
Neha Naveed- Interviewer and observer
Yashal Amir- Interviewer and observer
Our research: Interview- Gathering data:
Criteria for interview:
• Must be a Secondary High School student (IGCSE, AS/ A Level) or an IFP/ 1st year student
•Name of student
• Age of student
• Nationality
• Curriculum board-Study system (British, American-High School, CBSE, etc.)
Questions for the interview:
1. What do you think about education- Do you think it’s important?
2. What has Education taught you?
3. After graduating from school, do plan on studying further? If yes, ask why? If no, ask why?
4. Are you planning on taking a gap year after graduating from school as you need more time to think about what career you want to pursue?
5. Have you already decided on what career you want to pursue?
6. How did you decide that you want to pursue this career?
7. If you haven’t decided on what career you want to choose, how would you want the schools/ universities to help students like you choose a career?
8. Do you think that having a career is important in life?
9. Are you sure about the career you have chosen and do think that this is what you want to pursue in the future?
Students that I interviewed:
1. Amna Khan- an IFP student later pursuing a career in business
2. Fiza Sanjukumar Shah- an IFP student later pursuing a career in business
3. Lavesh Panjwani- a 1st year student pursuing a career in engineering.
Response from the students who interviewed:
- Amna: Thinks that education helps you grow as a person. She strongly believes that having a career is very important in order to support yourself and your family. She says, “Having a stable career allows you to be independent.” Amna is still unsure about her career as she has not had a chance to explore all her career options in the business field yet.
2. Fiza: Believes that education is important in today’s world as it not only teaches you about knowledge, but it can even teach you how to be independent, how to socialize with different people, etc. She likes many different fields but is still unsure about which one to choose. She believes that schools must help students decide their career by allowing them to gain experience through different activities/workshops.
3. Lavesh: Is certain that education is more than just book knowledge. He believes that they are life skills. He claims that education has basically shaped his entire lifestyle from A to Z. He feels like Education is more important than ever since we are in a world where everything is easier yet most competitive as well. “It would definitely help if schools/universities could help students during their decision process” speaking from personal experience as he quotes. He wants to pursue engineering in IT but is still confused about what field is best for him.
Converting data into insights:
My team members and I gathered all the data that we had collected during the interviews and converted them into insights. We organised them by grouping them into students who shared the same problems or views about a certain topic.
How Might We (HMW) Statement:
“How might we help High School Students explore their career options?”
Our Persona:
1. Who is this person?
This is Andy. She is 18 years old. She is currently studying in a high school.
2. What’s her problem?
- She Is unsure about her career choice.
- Has not explored all her career options.
- School hasn’t contributed in helping her decide the career.
- Not many opportunities to explore different careers.
3. What’s her motivation?
Her motivation is to experience and explore different career options so that she can reach her goal.
4. What’s her goal?
Her goal is being able to decide on what career she wants to pursue which she enjoys, finds challenging and wants to do after graduating from high school.
Planning our storyboard:
My team members and I sat down together and discussed what the main problem was. After sharing our views, we then came up with a problem that we had in common with the students we interviewed. The main problem that the students experienced was not being able to decide what career they want to pursue. Then we moved on to the next stage which was making the storyboard based on the problem we had.
Making the Storyboard:
We first split up our story board into three parts:
- Before: In which we plot what the problem is and how can we showcase it.
- During: Indicates the problem solving of the issue.
- After: shows what that person learned and pursued at the end.
Explaining the three parts in detail:
Before-
Shows how a student who just graduated from high school is talking to his uncle and tells him how he is still unsure about his career. His uncle tells him that he has a perfect website that could help him in making his decision about what career he wants to pursue.
During-
Tells us how the student searches for the website and uses it to explore his options. Once he opens the website link that his uncle provided him with, he sees that the website states, “REGISTER BELOW FOR EXPLORING CAREER OPTIONS IF YOU ARE NOT SURE WHICH CAREER IS RIGHT FOR YOU!” He then registers himself by entering his information and by completing the requirements. After he has registered, the next step would be choosing which career he is interested in, for example: Teacher, Doctor, Engineer, Accountant or any other career options that are available. After selecting and submitting what career he wants to explore, he has to wait for a confirmation email for the internship. Once the email has been received, it will tell him the details of what teacher/ any other occupation will he meet and shadow for a month. He will explore what the career is like in reality. After interning for a month with, for example, a teacher, he will explore the teaching career. Once he has finished his internship, he can then apply for another internship by choosing a different career that he wants to explore. By interning in different fields with people, it would help them choose what career they enjoy and would like to pursue in the future.
After:
Shows us how the student has experienced different career options and is now able to think what is best for him. He knows which field he enjoyed working in and finds challenging. He can then apply for that course at the university and start his journey towards his career that he wants to pursue.
Prototyping:
We created a simple experimental model of a possible solution to the problem. We made a sample of the website through which students can apply for the internship. After making the model, the next task was to test and take feedback from students about whether or not this solution of interning in different careers would help them with deciding their own career.
Getting Feedback:
After finishing our sample design, we went out to students and showed them our solution for the problem which was to help students decide about their career. We showed them the sample of the website through which they could apply for the internships, depending on what career they would like to explore first. Feedback from the students are given below:
1. Amna Khan: believes that providing students with internships is a great way for them to explore all their career options. She says, “It would be ideal for students who are unsure about their career as they can experience what the fields are like in reality.” She claims that there are many other ways for students to choose their career, for example, by counseling, talking to your parents, or speaking to person who has already pursued his career. She concludes that offering internships is the best way for students to explore and decide about the career they want to choose.
https://soundcloud.com/sadaf-mahmud/sets/feedback-from-amna-khan-about-our-solution
2. Fiza Shah: strongly believes that doing the internship would really help students who are unsure about their career. She says that many people know what field they want to pursue their career in but don’t know which career to choose in that specific field. She also adds that applying for the internship would give them more experience of what the careers are like. She claims that the internship is the best way for students to decide what career they want to pursue.
https://soundcloud.com/sadaf-mahmud/sets/feedback-about-our-solution-from-fiza-shah
Implementation and final solution to the problem:
After getting the feedback from the students, we checked if there were any implementations that had to be made. My team members and I combined all the feedback and came up to a solution. The solution that all the students agreed on was that, “Doing Internships and exploring different career options is the best way to decide what career they want to pursue.” Hence, there were no implementations needed as the feedback we got from the students was very positive.
To conclude, Students who are unsure about what career they want to pursue, must apply for the internship and explore different career options.