Designing life: How college courses in coping are booming
| Northampton, Mass.
On a recent weekday in a classroom at Smith College, a dozen or so undergraduates hunch over circular tables, scribbling intently. Their teacher strolls around the room, past sticker-covered laptops and water bottles, looking down at the laser-focused students.
鈥淚 want you to get really, really detailed,鈥� she says.听 听
They write.
Why We Wrote This
Higher education of an earlier era focused on contemplation of character, values, and how to live a good life. But today鈥檚 shift to achievement as the goal has students seeking more meaning.
鈥淥K,鈥� she says a few moments later, and the students sigh. Not enough time. 鈥淣ow I want you to check in with your partner.鈥�
There is some awkward shifting of chairs. And then, quietly, they begin to read off their worksheets.
鈥淚 just 鈥� I don鈥檛 know how to fit in all my goals in my weekly schedule.鈥�
鈥淲here do I want to live? What do I want to do?鈥�
鈥淚 feel pulled in multiple directions at once.鈥�
鈥淔amily is really important to me. Wherever I end up, I want to be near them. But that鈥檚 limiting, you know?鈥�
Stacie Hagenbaugh, director of Smith鈥檚 Lazarus Center for Career Development, moves quietly around the room. This is the fifth time she has taught the Getting Unstuck When You Don鈥檛 Know What鈥檚 Next workshop, a new course that has been gaining attention across campus. So she is not surprised by what she鈥檚 hearing.听
鈥淪tudents often get really overwhelmed by all the possibilities,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 so much 鈥� the clutter in their heads gets in the way.鈥�
The goal of Getting Unstuck is to help students focus, and to fill what many are increasingly pointing out as a gaping hole in modern college education 鈥� a lack of attention to those big life questions about what matters, how to be happy, and what to do next. It is one of a number of similar initiatives that Ms. Hagenbaugh has helped launch on campus over the past three years.听
She is far from alone in her work. Over the past few years, there has been a groundswell of courses nationwide that focus on how to help a notoriously stressed-out generation of college students learn how to approach life better. These initiatives are at big state schools and Ivy League universities; at art schools and business schools; through massive open online courses, or MOOCs; and over podcasts.
And students have responded in huge numbers. At Yale University, when psychology professor Laurie Santos offered a new course last year called Psychology and the Good Life, some 1,200 students 鈥� nearly a quarter of the undergraduate population 鈥� enrolled. It is now considered the most popular course in the school鈥檚 history. At Stanford University, the Designing Your Life class taught by Silicon Valley veterans Dave Evans and Bill Burnett became so popular that it evolved into the Stanford Life Design Lab, which runs undergraduate and graduate courses and other programs across campus. The lab's Life Design Studio has trained teams from 140 universities around the world, according to Gabrielle Santa-Donato, who runs the studio training program. Mr. Evans and Mr. Burnett鈥檚 2016 book, 鈥淒esigning Your Life,鈥� stemming from the course quickly became a New York Times bestseller. And when Emiliana Simon-Thomas, the science director of the University of California, Berkeley鈥檚 Greater Good Science Center, recently released her Science of Happiness course on the edX platform, more than 600,000 people enrolled.
鈥淚 think we鈥檙e at a tipping point with universities,鈥� says Julia Lang, assistant director for career education at Tulane University鈥檚 Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking. 鈥淗ow are universities remaining relevant? How are we creating students who are prepared to become change agents in society?鈥澨�
To help answer these questions, Ms. Lang began a life design course for a few students in 2016. Since then it has grown exponentially across the university; today it has more than two dozen sections taking place everywhere from the career center to the athletics department.
鈥淐ollege students are filled with so much information, but nobody has taken the time to ask them who they are and what do they care about and what sort of life do you want to build,鈥� Ms. Lang says. 鈥淭here is a huge need.鈥�
Behind Gen Z student stress
The intensity of that need is, perhaps, found in some of the statistics about the mental health of this generation of students. A 2018 report from the American College Health Association found that more than 60% of college students said they had experienced 鈥渙verwhelming anxiety鈥� within the past year; the rates of depression among young people have doubled in the past decade. Talk to university administrators, and many say that student mental health is among their most pressing concerns.
There are many explanations for this apparent rising stress level among undergraduates. Some administrators suggest that a generation of helicopter parents has left children unable to function independently.听
鈥淪tudents are coming to college with parents who have been so closely attending to every move,鈥� says Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former dean of students at Stanford who wrote the book 鈥淗ow to Raise an Adult.鈥� 鈥淲hen they鈥檙e outside the house, they are with parents. When they鈥檙e inside the house, they are with parents. They are never alone. I think we are going to learn years hence that the constant observation and tethering will really weaken them.鈥�
But others say that this generation of college students 鈥� often called Gen Z, or sometimes iGen 鈥� is facing its own unique set of challenges thanks to an economic, political, and technological world fundamentally different from even a decade ago, adding to young people鈥檚 apprehension.
According to Pew Research Center, faith in government in the United States is at a historic low, with only 17% of the American public saying they trust lawmakers in Washington. Only 21% of college students say they have confidence in the news media, according to a 2018 report by the Panetta Institute for Public Policy. And although social media use has skyrocketed, with Pew research finding that 95% of teens have access to smartphones and 45% say they are online 鈥渁lmost constantly,鈥� nearly 50% say they feel overwhelmed by the drama contained in what they read on their devices. 听
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All of this comes on top of unprecedented student loan debt 鈥� a cause of worry 鈥渙ften鈥� or 鈥渟omewhat often鈥� for 65% of college students, according to the Panetta Institute report. Add a rapidly changing job landscape, and it鈥檚 no surprise college students have anxiety, many administrators say.
鈥淲e鈥檙e definitely seeing a shift with students who are feeling more overwhelmed and anxious about what they鈥檙e going to be doing next,鈥� says Ms. Hagenbaugh. 鈥淚t is a rapidly changing professional environment. The students who are first years will likely graduate and walk into a job that didn鈥檛 exist when they started. It feels overwhelming.鈥�
鈥淲icked problems鈥�
Many of the life courses that have sprung up on campuses are deliberately geared toward addressing this sort of unknown future. They are built around 鈥渄esign thinking,鈥� a problem-solving approach popular in the tech world that has moved into the mainstream in the past few years.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a process that鈥檚 all about wrestling with ambiguity,鈥� says Kathy Davies, managing director of Stanford鈥檚 Life Design Lab. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all about what we call 鈥榳icked problems鈥� 鈥� problems that don鈥檛 have a solution, that can鈥檛 be solved with money. And that鈥檚 life, right?鈥�
Design thinking 鈥� and life design, when design thinking is applied to oneself 鈥� focuses on brainstorming (think flow journals and list-making), innovating, and prototyping, which is tech jargon for experimenting. There鈥檚 an emphasis on trying things out and having 鈥渟mall failures鈥� 鈥� early, quick lessons that help steer one to a better path.
鈥淚f you sum it all up, it鈥檚 about getting curious,鈥� says Ms. Davies. 鈥淲hat do I care about enough to invest time and energy in? It鈥檚 about trying things. About reflecting, doing it again, and being able to connect the dots.鈥澨�
For many students, getting away from a culture of executing tasks is emotionally groundbreaking. Researchers at California State University, Dominguez Hills found that participants in designing-life programs had less career anxiety, increased hope and resilience, and a better ability to create options for themselves than before they started.
鈥淭here is a real cognitive shift around exploration, risk-taking, and the ability to control one鈥檚 destiny in the face of real change,鈥� Ms. Davies says.
This was certainly true for Julia Sagaser. As she started her senior year at Smith, she felt overwhelmed.
She had already switched majors once during college 鈥� from pre-med to film and media studies 鈥� but she still felt she was in the wrong field. A grueling combination of internships, schoolwork, and extracurricular projects had left her exhausted. She was scheduled to graduate in December, but she had no idea what she was going to do then, or even what she would do over the upcoming summer.
鈥淚 was really trying to reassess,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut I wasn鈥檛 sure what to do.鈥�
Tasks toward self-knowledge
She emailed the career center and asked about the Getting Unstuck workshop, which she had been hearing about around school. Soon, Ms. Sagaser was filling out a worksheet, in the shape of a compass, titled 鈥淭he Big Picture.鈥� She listed her dreams, what was important to her, and what she had learned from past work and academic experiences. At the same time, she began designing experiments that could 鈥渢est out鈥� future life paths, whether that meant interviewing professionals already in a particular field or shadowing someone at a job. She started a Pinterest board with images she found inspiring for her life. And she began to envision an internship project that fit in with her broader life goals 鈥� whether that meant working in nature or being close to her parents in Maine.听
Slowly, she says, the anxiety level began to lower. She found an organization doing the sort of work she found interesting 鈥� the Wells Reserve at Laudholm in York County, Maine 鈥� and convinced people there to allow her to intern for the summer. There, she began a research and film project.听
While Ms. Sagaser still doesn鈥檛 know what she is planning to do after graduation, she says she isn鈥檛 as worried about it. She keeps an oversized copy of her Getting Unstuck compass pinned to her dorm room wall.
鈥淚 came to learn that a path doesn鈥檛 have to already be carved out for you, and it doesn鈥檛 have to be a linear one, with concrete steps,鈥� she says. 鈥淥nce I discovered that those cookie-cutter paths are few and far between, and when they do exist they鈥檙e really illusions, that felt better. Because everyone is in the same place. It鈥檚 not like anyone is the weirdo who doesn鈥檛 have it all figured out.鈥�
Not knowing is OK
Mr. Evans began the Designing Your Life course in part to help more people have this revelation. He says the seeds for his work began in the early 1970s when he was an undergraduate at Stanford and went to the career center for help.
鈥淭hey said, 鈥榃hat do you want to do?鈥欌�� he recalls. 鈥淎nd I said, 鈥楻ight. What do I want to do?鈥� They said, 鈥楴o, that鈥檚 not how this works.鈥欌�� Now, Mr. Evans says, we might not expect students to know exactly what they want to do, but 鈥渨e keep asking, 鈥榃hat鈥檚 your passion? What鈥檚 your passion?鈥欌��
Which, he and others say, is a ridiculous question for college students.
鈥淧assion comes after trying something out in the real world,鈥� says Ms. Lang of Tulane University. 鈥淗ow is a student supposed to know what they鈥檙e passionate about when most of their life they鈥檝e been in school?鈥�
In 2000, Mr. Evans began teaching a course at the University of California, Berkeley called Finding Your Vocation (aka Is Your Calling Calling?) with the goal of offering an alternative way for students to start exploring what they might want to do in their adult lives. What he intended to be a one-semester seminar evolved into years of teaching, with more and more students eager to take the class. In 2007, he and Mr. Burnett decided to try out a version of the course for design students at Stanford 鈥� an initiative that has expanded into the sweeping life design movement.
鈥淸Poet] Mary Oliver said it 鈥� 鈥榳hat is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?鈥欌�� Mr. Evans says. 鈥淭hat question matters to people. The zeitgeist of wisdom addressing that question is not working for people. What we are suggesting is working for people.鈥�
And that, he says, is because his course, and the many iterations of it across the country, is about designing a life, not picking a career.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not just designing your job,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 love, play, work, and health. ... A well-lived and joyful life is the goal we are trying to help people attain.鈥�
Long ago, a focus on living well
Some skeptics might suggest that universities do not need to be in the business of fostering joy. But historians point out that a few generations past, higher learning was all about the meaning of life.
鈥淭he missions of schools in this country when they were first founded was about how to live well,鈥� says Emily Esfahani Smith, author of 鈥淭he Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed With Happiness.鈥� With overtly religious missions, she says, schools were intentionally focused on 鈥渉ow to live a good life.鈥�
And to help students do that, universities based their curricula on the great books 鈥� those foundational texts of Western civilization in which philosophers contemplated big life questions. Professors unabashedly taught 鈥渄uty鈥� and 鈥渃haracter鈥� without fear of charges of paternalism or cultural colonialism. (It鈥檚 worth pointing out that both students and professors were primarily white men from relatively privileged, homogeneous backgrounds, some university administrators say.) But as Ms. Smith writes in her book, secular humanism soon pushed religious mission out of the academy. Political correctness and specialization further reduced universitywide conversations about morals and values, she says.
The result is a higher education system that focuses on 鈥渁chievement for the sake of achievement,鈥� Ms. Smith says.
Others agree.
鈥淎cademia, as a sector of society, really does rest on individualistic, competitive cultural values,鈥� says Ms. Simon-Thomas of Berkeley鈥檚 Greater Good Science Center. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the scarcity orientation 鈥� there鈥檚 only this much money, there are only this many seats, only so many people who can be successful. When we find ourselves trying to navigate various decisions where scarcity is the overarching framework, people veer toward self-interest.鈥�
Yet a lot of research shows that following self-interest 鈥� whether it鈥檚 buying a new car, working for a promotion, or holing up in a dorm room to ace a test 鈥� tends to make people feel lousy.
Exploring ideas like this was a focus of Ms. Santos鈥� class at Yale. In the course, she spoke regularly about the difference between what people think will make them happy and what actually leads to true happiness. 鈥淪o many of our intuitions are wrong,鈥� she says.听 听
Ms. Santos recently launched a podcast, 鈥淭he Happiness Lab,鈥� that delves into these misconceptions. Episodes focus on the 鈥渦nhappy millionaire,鈥� for example, exploring how, after a certain point, money does not improve happiness.
Time and space to think
But at the same time, there is research showing which actions do improve happiness, Ms. Santos says. Taking time for social connection is one. So is practicing gratitude.听
One reason her class was so popular, she suspects, is that she delved into these concrete practices, giving her students assignments 鈥� in other words, time 鈥� to try them out. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 supposed to be another psychology class,鈥� she says.
Indeed, the time and space to practice good life habits, Ms. Lang says, are key parts of the courses she and others teach at Tulane. Many students, she says, realize that reflection and brainstorming are important, but with schedules that have been overprescribed since they were in elementary school, they鈥檝e never had the opportunity to focus on these skills, or, really, themselves. 听
鈥淭hey are at this crucial point in their development,鈥� Ms. Lang says. 鈥淭hey still have a lot on their shoulders, from other people鈥檚 expectation. Every year has been another tick on the belt. From kindergarten you go to first grade. From high school you go to college. They鈥檝e never had the platform to take a step off that ladder and look at it.鈥�
In her classes she asks students to do various reflection exercises, such as thinking about the three most powerful adults who affected their lives as children, and then exploring how those people approached work and home. She asks students to come up with three potential life pathways, and talk to fellow classmates about how they might test those ideas.
鈥淲e give students the opportunity to pause,鈥� she says.
As the Getting Unstuck workshop nears its end, Ms. Hagenbaugh asks her students to change all of their problem statements into 鈥淗ow might I鈥� questions.听
鈥淲hat鈥檚 a piece of the puzzle that you can work towards?鈥� she asks.
Then she instructs them to write those queries on large sheets of paper she has left in the middle of their tables.
Peri Navarro, a senior, grabs a green marker. 鈥淗ow might I motivate more to focus on what matters?鈥� she writes.
Ms. Hagenbaugh gives the students some time, and then tells them to attach their sheets to the walls of the classroom. She encourages them to walk around and read other people鈥檚 questions, and to fill in suggestions.
Ms. Navarro walks slowly. She came to the Getting Unstuck workshop with some big questions, about where she wants to live, what she wants to do, whether she should go to graduate school, and how to incorporate environmentalism into her next steps.
When the workshop ends, she still seems deep in thought. 鈥淚t鈥檚 great to have these questions,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 need to think more about them. This is a start.鈥�
