Design Your Future: Real-World Career Prep for the AI Age

As AI reshapes entry-level work, students need more than pathway exposure. They need identity, agency, mentors, field work and proof of skill. This poster presentation shares Design Your Future, a design-thinking course model in which students anchor their values and identity, investigate a wicked problem, build a portfolio, secure mentorship, complete field work and pursue advanced learning through concurrent courses, MOOCs or microcredentials. Learn how these experiences can be assessed through transferable outcomes such as self-direction, relational intelligence, project management, adaptability and self-awareness. You will leave with a modular, replicable sequence that can live inside advisory, English, capstone or CTE pathway structures, along with sample student deliverables such as resumes, portfolios, mentor outreach routines and Presentation of Learning checkpoints. Partnership strategies and implementation moves that support equity, student agency and career relevance round out a practical, human-centered approach to career-connected learning that avoids reducing students to narrow job training.