Design thinking course

Ideate:The development between school, University and beyond graduation

Before Univeristy begins• Provide better financial management and business education to children• Truly help younger students understand, define and plan what they want to do with their

lives• Provide collaborative exercises in schools for children to solve real world problems as part

of a team• Enable kids to experience more of the work environment through planned days and

experiences• Encourage kids to get a paper route and consider alternative ideas and thinking outside the

box, such as sourcing papers from the wholesaler rather than working for the shop• Get younger students to interview their parents and review their jobs and how they got to

that point in their lives• Encourage them to create a plan moving forward of what they want to achieve• Build students confidence, by engaging them and asking how they want to learn or even

teach others• Run lessons where kids start and manage their own businesses• Change the traditional next step school question from “what do you want to study” to

“where do you want to be in 10 years time and how will you get there”

Before finishing university• Career sessions/ days with prospective employers to expose students to the type of role that they

may want• Interview sessions with previous graduates who are matched to students based on criteria such as

what the student wishes to do• At the beginning of University outlining to people the potential career their course is leading them

to, different levels of study and career searching are too separated in silos• Entrepreneurial and financial classes included earlier on in the school system so people can see and

understand the potential of starting out on your own• A wider range of internships for students through out their university career rather than a single

placement• Students should be expected to find work in the summer around a subject that interests them to

demonstrate their determination• Student should be able to study a different course for 1 week every year to give them a taste of

other opportunities and ideally reaffirm the reasons they choose their course• More innovation and inspiration based aspects within the curriculum, forcing the students to

consider different alternatives and perspectives• Draw on the experience of previous graduates and industry experts to create a database of

information for students to draw upon• Create incubators within university to develop the ideas of those wishing to be entrepreneurial and

take their own path

Upon graduation• The government should provide students with guidance and short formal training on how

best to write CV’s and interview• More internship schemes for young and determined individuals should be available in

companies, experience is essential• Access to jobs should be a more social exercise, utilising the digital tools available• Bright graduates with great ideas should be made aware of the many different types of

support and development for startups by incorporating small lectures into the leaving package

• Inform more graduates of the potential opportunities on a global level• Create a communication channel for graduates to communicate directly with the relevant

people for international opportunities• Help students create a plan to work towards, whether it is a 2 or 5 year plan, and then make

them consider how to work back from that point to realise their path• Connect graduates with similar and complimenting interests to help them work as a team

to find the right roles or start something for themselves, stop them competing in vain• Provide opportunities for students to undertake extra curricular activities outside of their

studies to expand their portfolio of experience

During transition• Organise extra learning and group hang outs, similar to hack days or online lessons around business

and marketing techniques• Help graduates learn how to market themselves properly to the right individuals• Revolutionise the recruitment industry to be run by the people with the skills they are looking for• Improve the support structure provided by universities for new graduates• Provide a ‘big brothers/sister’ type figure who is currently working in a similar role to that person

dream position• Encourage people looking for work by providing volunteering roles in exciting and stimulating

environments exposing them to new opportunities while keeping them fresh• Incase awareness around the large variety of apprenticeships available beyond the modern day to

day ‘become a builder’ model• Create employer and potential employee speed dating events for a range of different industry sectors• Encourage employers to create more internships to create a more solid wealth of experience among

the next generation• Enable new starters to learn from the positive experience of those around them but also understand

their mistakes and the important learnings from those as well• Enable and encourage migration between cities, to expand horizons and drive graduates to locations

where the work they seek may be available

First year• Provide reviews of both the individuals life goals and 5 year plan to confirm the direction they are

headed• Provide reviews of their finances to help them better manage themselves maintain a suitable level of

living• Provide more guidance around how to manage finances and breaking commercialised and debt

focused habits• Express the danger of debt and the impact it has on a persons financial future and therefore career

management/expectations• Collect that persons experiences to feed into a database for up coming fellow graduates• Create digital content such as videos on a YouTube channel of interviews with employers, employees

and there experiences• Build a webpage similar to property finder sites that shows the current states of the job market,

broken down by sector and jobs within your local area• Create a social media platform specifically for graduates looking for work, for peer reviews, guidance

and awareness of jobs in the market, working on the idea of collaboration rather than competition• Build a platform that enables them to help their friends and new graduates find work• Curate the best attention grabbing methods undertaken by the truly inspirational graduates to get

their dream job, for example wearing billboard outlining your skills by the businesses you want to work for to inspire the next group

Big ideas

Give students the opportunity to study another course for a week:The choices of course and the limited time to make the choice can be overwhelming. I think expanding a students horizon and enabling them to see what else is out there can reaffirm there choices or even open a new doorway that may not have considered.

Big ideas

Build a video recruiting platform:Enabling students to create impact, express their strengths and personalities through a medium richer than pen and paper. First impressions are important and a picture is worth a thousand words.

Big ideas

Job interview speed dating:Create employer and potential employee speed dating events for a range of different industry sectors, to get people exposure talking to the right people and making the right connections.