Life + Career Design Lab
The LAS Life + Career Design Lab is a one-stop shop where students in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences can explore their interests and questions on majors, career preparation, study abroad, undergraduate research and other life-designing and life-shaping activities.
From mapping your future to accessing opportunities while on campus, we'll help you design your life both as a student and beyond.
You can also contact us to set up an appointment or for more information.
Resources you'll find within the lab
Through the Life + Career Design Lab, you'll find:
- Professional staff dedicated to helping students navigate their Illinois experience, including study abroad, career development, and new-student transitions
- Computers and printers to access information on opportunities
- Wayfinding maps and other Life + Career Design tools
- Peer advising for study abroad, undergraduate research, and career planning
Annika Chrobak-Prince is a third-year senior majoring in psychology and pursuing a neuroscience certificate. In addition to her role as a Life + Career Design intern, they serve as a peer facilitator of a variety of workshops hosted by the Women's Resources Center, including FYCARE, ICARE, and I Heart Healthy Relationships. Annika also served as a peer advisor for first year psychology students over the summer. During their free time, Annika likes doing crosswords, exercising, getting coffee, and going to trivia nights.
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Nimisha Goenka is a senior majoring in clinical psychology in the honors concentration. She started college as a confused undeclared International student but eventually found her interests and career path. Nimisha is currently writing her honors thesis and is also the president for James Scholar Student Advisory Board. She has been an undergraduate research assistant for two years, an orientation leader, and an ATLAS, LAS 100, and LAS 122 intern. Nimisha aspires to be a clinical psychologist and an advocate for mental health. In her free time she enjoys reading, playing golf, and spending time with friends and family.
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Norma Grabauskaite is a junior majoring in Spanish and speech and hearing science with a concentration in neuroscience. A first-generation student currently on the pre-law track, she had uncertainty about her initial major and explored different courses before transferring to LAS. She grew up speaking Lithuanian, which inspired her passion for learning more languages like Spanish and Russian. On campus, she is primarily involved in Alpha Phi Omega, which is a co-ed service fraternity, serving as the project coordinator director, and is also an LAS 101 intern this fall. In her free time she enjoys reading mysteries and thrillers, discovering new music, being outdoors, and traveling.
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A returning intern at the Life + Career Design Lab, Maaz Haji is a senior majoring in molecular and cellular biology. An aspiring physician, he is the president of MEDLIFE, a non-profit disaster and humanitarian relief organization. Specializing in undergraduate research, gaining leadership opportunities, and the James Scholar program, he loves working with students to help them find what they are truly passionate about. Maaz’s volunteering interests include working at hospice facilities and food pantries. He is our resident amatuer lab magician, pick a card from him!
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Ashley Hornig is a senior majoring in history with a minor in secondary education. After obtaining her undergraduate degree, she plans to become a high school history teacher. In addition to being a Life + Career Design Lab intern, she is a student worker for the Illinois Early Learning Project, a member of the social sorority Illinithon, and serves on the Honors Student Council through the Campus Honors Program. In her free time, she enjoys singing, listening to music, and spending time with friends.
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Caleb Rathbun is a senior transfer student majoring in molecular and cellular biology. He serves as the vice president of Model United Nations at Illinois. Last spring he ran a high school conference that raised funds for UNICEF and CERF. This summer he researched lung cancer at UIC Rockford. Following his graduation, Caleb plans on attending medical school. At home, he volunteers with Buddy Baseball and the Discovery Center Museum. When he isn’t studying, Caleb often plays video games with friends and watches movies. He considers himself to be a Fast and Furious expert and often boasts about his profound knowledge of the franchise in the third person.
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Resources beyond the lab
The lab is a space that encourages students to think like a designer when getting involved and preparing for the future. However, many of the lab’s experiences happen all over campus and around the world, including through:
- Classes and workshops
- Job search tools, including internships and career fairs
- Study abroad
- Undergraduate research
- Leadership activities
- Service opportunities
Mapping your future
Career planning involves understanding yourself, your interests, and your goals given the opportunities available and potentially available to you. In Life + Career Design, we adopt the concept of wayfinding as a tool for understanding where we have been, imagining where we want to go, and identifying multiple paths we can take to get there.
Wayfinding is a particularly useful way to conceptualize career development because it assumes that either the goal is not completely clear or the path to that goal is not clear or certain, just like in career development. It allows for exploration of an environment and opportunities, attention to important cues or markers that are relevant along the path, and alternative pathways to a desired goal. Wayfinding encourages engagement/interaction with others, especially when one needs guidance or solutions to challenges that seem to be getting in the way of progress toward a goal.
To support our students’ wayfinding in their life and career development, we ask them to create wayfinding maps. This is a visual representation of where you have been (retrospective) or where you want to go (prospective).
A retrospective map has students note the activities or accomplishments in their life that they have found meaningful in recent years, then connect the related activities in ways they had intended and in ways they hadn’t, but that became clear upon reflection. Retrospective wayfinding helps one make sense of past decisions and engagements, how they were meaningful, and why.
A prospective wayfinding map has students reflecting on the opportunities available to them, identifying a goal, be it clear or not clear, and envisioning paths of engagement toward that goal.
A wayfinding map consists of:
- Dots (engagements): These are things you have done or will do that are of meaningful. They might be as small as an important conversation with a mentor or as a large as a travel experience or multi-week project.
- Solid, straight lines: This is one way that engagements sometimes connect in tracks. It can be thicker to emphasize a larger commitment or a series of engagements planned many steps in advance with a definite endpoint or goal in mind. A major or long-term volunteer commitment might fit this.
- Solid, curvy lines: These are wanders or explorations, a series of engagements that seem to have something in common in hindsight, but were not planned out together and the endpoint is not clear at the moment.
- Dotted lines: These are engagements that were not regularly attended or ones that fizzle out over time because you lost interest in them and/or they were no longer a priority.
Here’s an example of an LAS freshman’s wayfinding map that addresses whether the student wants to major in integrative biology or molecular and cellular biology. The map and activity required the student to reflect on how to gain clarity on an answer to the question "Do I want to major in integrative biology or molecular and cellular biology?"
Rationale: I am curious about this question because going into college, I was really set on molecular and cellular biology. After some investigation into the two different majors, I am no longer so sure. In high school, I took AP biology and was always better at the molecular and cellular part of the class because I am really good at memorizing information. After realizing this, I thought that I should major in MCB because my test scores showed that MCB was my strong suit.
However, MCB in college is very different then MCB in high school. In college, my professor wants us to go beyond memorization and into application, and this is where I started to struggle. At first, when I started feeling unsure about MCB, I told myself I was just psyching myself out because it was a rigorous course. After really sitting down and thinking about it I realized I was never really passionate about MCB, I was just good at it. Once MCB became application-based, I lost interest.
Once I realized this, I scheduled a meeting with an integrative biology advisor, Tonya Pulley, to discuss my problem. She discussed some community health classes I could take spring semester to further see if integrative biology was right for me. She also suggested that I shadow a physician's assistant over winter break or summer break before ruling out MCB, because that is the career path I was planning on pursuing after earning a degree in molecular and cellular biology. I know that this inquiry does not need to be solved until sophomore year, but I think it is a good thing to start thinking about it now.
To learn more about creating your own wayfinding map, take one of our classes or visit the Life + Career Design Lab.