PSYC 11
Designing your Life and Career After Williams Winter 2019

This is not the current course catalog

This course takes a psychological approach to helping you figure out what to do with your life. We start by reviewing your life story up until now and determining how it has shaped you. We discuss, for example, whether you feel pressured to go down a certain road, whether you feel torn between your head and your heart, or whether you feel directionless. Then we take stock of who you really are now, including your core interests, tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses. We try to identify life designs that play to your signature strengths, as opposed to situations that are a setup for frustration and failure. The class encourages you to let go of comparing yourself to your peers, as different people need different things. You explore your underlying values and what you find most important in life. You consider the level of meaning you need in your work, as well as how much you care about money, status, fame, independence, connection, and creativity. The class introduces you to the concept of “flow,” the feeling you get when engaging in activities that provide ideal levels of challenge and mastery. By designing lives and careers that promote flow states, you will be most likely to thrive and not merely succeed. Indeed, it is important not to design a life that appears successful but feels miserable. Your choice of a romantic partner can also have huge implications for the trajectory of your life. The class helps you to identify typical traps, such as staying with someone who is a bad match, and discusses how to make constructive relationship choices. Ultimately, as there are likely multiple valid life and career paths for you to take, you identify and develop three different plans that feel authentic and inspiring to you. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Dr. Johnson received his B.A. from Williams College, his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yale University, and is a Clinical Associate Professor at Brown University. He has taught this Winter Study for the last two years and deeply enjoys mentoring students around career issues.