Students investigate how their interests, strengths, values, and cultural influences connect to real careers while beginning to see career development as an ongoing journey. Through identity-based artifacts, career research, community partner experiences, and professional communication practice, they build a clearer picture of possible pathways and workplace expectations. Across the 8-week experience, they create portfolio-ready work that includes a career pathway collage or timeline, a one-page career exploration profile, and a recorded mock interview or career talk debrief. The experience culminates in a mini-exhibition where students share evidence of what they can do now and name a next growth goal for high school and beyond.

Students will identify and explain their interests, strengths, values, and cultural influences, then connect them to possible careers and training routes through a collage or timeline and a one-page career exploration profile. Students will research career pathways with digital tools, analyze job skills and workplace settings, and use evidence from site visits or career talks to compare options and update their thinking. Students will practice professional communication through mock interviews, thank-you notes, and recorded debriefs that show what they learned about workplace roles and expectations. Students will build and revise portfolio artifacts, use peer feedback to strengthen reflection, and present a mini-exhibition that shows one career-connected project, one professional communication sample, and one next-step growth goal.

Students create a fast visual identity board at launch, then develop a career pathway collage or timeline showing how their interests, values, strengths, and cultural influences connect to possible jobs and training routes. Across the 8 weeks, they build a one-page career exploration profile that includes researched job skills, workplace settings, and evidence from a community partner visit, along with a professional communication sample such as a thank-you email or interview follow-up. They also produce a before-and-after interest and strengths map, a revised written reflection, and a recorded mock interview or career talk debrief highlighting what they learned about workplace roles and expectations. By the end, students curate these artifacts into a portfolio and present one career-connected project, one communication sample, and one growth goal in the Future Me Gallery Walk mini-exhibition.

Start with “Future Me Snapshots”: students build a quick visual identity board using images, words, and short captions that show their interests, strengths, values, and cultural influences alongside careers they are curious about. Then run a fast mingle where students share one possible career connection, notice patterns across the class, and add new ideas after hearing peers. Close with a short gallery walk of local employer and nonprofit partner profiles, then ask students to update a before-course interest-and-strengths map with one question they want to investigate through site visits, career talks, or mock interviews.

Host a Future Me Gallery Walk where students display their career pathway collage or timeline, their one-page career exploration profile, and a portfolio page featuring one professional communication sample and one growth goal. Invite classmates, teachers, families, local employers, and nonprofit partners to rotate through the gallery, use peer feedback stems, and ask students to explain how their interests, values, and cultural influences connect to possible careers and training routes. Include a listening station or QR code for each student’s recorded mock interview or career talk debrief so visitors can hear what they learned about workplace roles and expectations. Before the public share, students complete a peer-feedback gallery walk and revise one reflection on how their career interests and values are coming together.