What’s an Opportunity, Anyway?

So you’re building your opportunity matrix. Cool. But how do you decide what counts as a real, actionable opportunity?

It doesn’t have to be as concrete as an offer letter sitting in your mailbox. Maybe it’s still just an idea, and that’s okay. Just make sure that when you write it down, you’re thinking in verbs rather than nouns.

For example, writing down “Prosthetics for veterans” isn’t really actionable. It’s just a thing.

“Doing research and development for a big prosthetics company” sounds better, because it expresses what you’ll be doing. A really crystal clear Opportunity might go something like, “Working on firmware for prosthetic motor controls as my senior project” — this includes not just what you’ll be doing, but also provides some context for how you’ll be doing it.

Of course, the most important thing is to get started. Even if you don’t have a really cut-and-dry option on the table, you can always refine your matrix as you go along.

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