Due to persistently changing patterns of education globally is it now essential that all students have access to career guidance that is future-focused and personalised. Students need to learn strategies that will equip them to plan and manage their learning and career pathways. Students often arrive at university level with some thoughts and idea of their future employment direction. The decisions that young students make at university level have a huge impact on their career – affecting not just their further education, training or employment, but also their social lives, finances and health outcomes. Teachers and professors can be regard as primarily designers as they help preparing students to transition successfully toward a future career path by providing curriculum opportunities to build students’ common capabilities, support students’ interests and aspirations, and support them to make informed decisions about their subject choices and pathways.
It is important for university instructors to grasp their student’s career enthusiasm and foster a link between the curriculum and potential future career applications. Providing students with a chance to connect their classroom learning, (online or face-to-face) with workplace relevance will result in many positive learning outcomes such as motivation, grit, and career goal setting
Integrating career-focused curriculum into classroom discussion
Integrating career-focused curricula into all courses into the discussions can help out students make a connection between the curriculum and practical application. Point to be noted that without broad exposure to potential careers students often know little about what they can do following their undergraduate studies; this puts them at risk for making uninformed decisions about their future careers. Many consider class discussions to be the heart of the classroom learning, and integrating key career information into this medium allows students the opportunity and chance to explore, connect, and apply career-focused topics. These are some tips to integrate career content into the classroom:
1. Integrating career focused topics in discussions and activities
2. Using and integrating services offered by career resource centers.
3. Including guest speakers
4. And incorporating additional online career resources.
These plan help foster a connection between course material, professions and students.
Quality curriculum
Curriculum matters mostly because of its potential impacts on students. The main reason of curriculum development is to make sure that students receive academic and professional development and learning, integrated and coherent learning experiences contributing towards their personal. The chief responsibility of the curriculum transaction lies on the tutor or teacher who may use different types of pedagogies to create a pleasant academic environment and students can have advantage in gaining knowledge and developing skills as per industry demand. Curriculum is implemented by teachers, and depends more on the quality of teaching and learning strategies, learning materials and assessment. A wide variety of teaching techniques is used in institutions. Apart from the ubiquitous lecture, the additional teaching elements may be Seminar (small group teaching), Tutorials, Research seminar, Exercise classes or courses, Workshops (classroom-based practical classes), Problem-solving sessions, Laboratory teaching, Demonstration classes, Placement (internship/traineeship), Work-based practice, Fieldwork, Online / Distance or e-learning. Use of teaching elements depends on the focus of the teaching and the future learning outcomes for the students.
Curriculum development matters a lot in setting the direction of change in an institute, not only at the micro but also at macro levels. University students need to be exposed to career exploration in their early coursework via classroom discussions and real world speaker. Career education is an enduring learning experience that needs to have a greater focus, from the first semester through the last.
