Students investigate how their strengths, interests, values, and identities connect to possible careers by engaging in job shadows, skill stations, coaching sessions, and conversations with professionals. Across four sessions, they gather evidence in a career portfolio, reflect through audio, photo, and written entries, and track how their thinking changes over time. The experience helps students see career development as an ongoing journey while building speaking, listening, research, and vocabulary skills through real-world exploration. By the end, students create and share a before-and-after identity map that links self-knowledge to future pathways, including apprenticeship and other high school options.

Students will analyze how their strengths, interests, values, and cultural background connect to possible career and learning pathways, then revise their thinking using evidence from interviews, job shadows, skill stations, and coaching sessions. They will conduct short research, take purposeful notes, and synthesize information from professionals and career resources to compare workplace tasks, skills, environments, and training options, including apprenticeships. Students will strengthen discussion, listening, and presentation skills by asking questions, building on others’ ideas, and sharing a clear growth takeaway in small groups and public exhibition settings. They will curate a career portfolio and create a before-and-after identity map that uses written, audio, and visual artifacts to show how their goals and self-understanding changed over time.

Students will create a career portfolio that includes a personal strengths-and-interests statement, interview and job-shadow notes, photos or artifacts from skill stations, and at least three audio or written reflections showing how their thinking changed over time. Throughout the four weeks, they will also build smaller artifacts such as a fast-start identity map, a pathway passport from partner experiences, and a timeline, collage, or short visual narrative connecting identity, culture, and future goals. The culminating product is a before-and-after identity map poster or digital slide deck that shows how their interests shifted after job shadows, coaching sessions, and hands-on tasks, supported by evidence from multiple sources. For exhibition, students will curate selected portfolio pieces into a Future Me gallery display and prepare a short small-group or family-facing presentation that shares one key growth takeaway and a next step.

Open with a “Who Am I, What’s Next?” studio where students rotate through quick provocations from partner industries—tools, uniforms, menus, media clips, and patient-care scenarios—then add photos, sticky notes, and voice memos to a first-draft identity map. Invite guests from hospitals, trades, restaurants, media studios, and career centers to run brief skill demos and coaching conversations so students can collect “Pathway Passport” stamps while noticing what feels interesting, challenging, or energizing. Close with a structured small-group discussion in which students compare first impressions, name one strength or value they saw in themselves, and generate an initial career question they want to investigate in their portfolio.

Close the project with a Future Me Gallery Walk in a hallway or library where students display their before-and-after identity map posters or digital slides alongside timelines, collages, strengths statements, and portfolio reflections from interviews, job shadows, and skill stations. Add QR codes for audio reflections and invite classmates, staff, families, local employers, career center coaches, and apprenticeship partners to leave written feedback about each student’s growth and next steps. Pair this with a Pathway Preview Night where students lead short small-group presentations explaining how their interests shifted, what evidence shaped their thinking, and one career-related goal they want to pursue next. This format gives every student a public audience for speaking, listening, and research while celebrating identity development and real-world exploration.