Unstuck:
Design Your Next Move
Programme at a glance
- Level
Young adults aged 18 to 35
- Duration
4 hours + 7-day digital learning journey
- Cohort Size
Up to 30 participants per workshop
- Format
In person at your campus, at our Creative Lab, or at a venue you nominate
What participants will take away:
A personal empathy map, a Career Vision Board, a “My Next 3 Moves” action card, an EDIT Design Thinking® career workbook and a set of Random Cards
For seven days after the session, participants receive short emails with reflection prompts, curated career exploration resources and a check-in on the moves they planned.
Why young adults get stuck
Young adults are often asked to choose a direction before they have enough experience or evidence to make that choice confidently. The challenge is not a lack of ambition. Traditional career guidance often asks for an answer too early.
Limited Exposure to Possibilities
Many young people have only encountered a narrow range of careers, so they are being asked to choose from possibilities they may not even know exist.
Pressure to Choose the Right Path
Advice often comes from adults whose careers developed in a very different environment. At the same time, young people may feel that choosing one direction means closing the door on others, making every decision feel much bigger than it needs to be.
Prototype Before You Decide
Unstuck treats uncertainty as a design problem, not a decision problem. Instead of committing before they have enough evidence, participants explore, test and learn from small steps, prototyping their way towards greater clarity.
This is not a personality test
This is not about putting participants into categories or telling them what career they should pursue. Instead, the process helps them uncover real evidence from their own experiences and turn it into a practical next step.
No Labels or Predetermined Answers
Participants do not fill in a questionnaire and receive a category. There is no algorithm, personality type, report, or recommended job list telling them who they are or what they should do.
Evidence from Real Experiences
Participants work through a structured process to uncover evidence they already have but may never have organised: what they lose time doing, what problems they feel driven to solve, and what others naturally ask them for help with.
A Method They Can Reuse
That evidence becomes possible directions, and those directions become three testable next moves. The outcome is not a fixed answer, but a method participants can return to in two years, when their circumstances and questions have changed.
What happens in the session
Know yourself
About 60 minutes
A quick Career Myths Quiz tests common beliefs, such as “always follow your passion”. Participants then pair up for a Future Self Interview, interviewing each other as the people they could be in ten years, and turn what they hear into a personal empathy map.
Know the world
About 30 minutes
Groups study three real career profiles from creative, tech, social impact and traditional sectors: what the day looks like, the skills it needs and how fulfilling it is. The point is to compare real work, not job titles
Frame and explore
About 75 minutes
Each participant writes a “How might I” statement that links a strength to something they care about. Then comes the Career Mashup: participants combine two Random Cards to invent unexpected careers, use Idea Dice to push further, and aim for ten or more ideas each.
Pitch your next three moves
About 45 minutes
Participants make a one-page Career Vision Board, present it to a partner and get structured feedback: I like, I wish, what if. Each person then writes a “My Next 3 Moves” action card.
The session includes two short breaks, and teams score points on a live leaderboard throughout.
By the end of this programme, participants take away:
- A personal empathy map
- A Career Vision Board
- A “My Next 3 Moves” action card with concrete next steps
- An EDIT Design Thinking® career workbook and a set of Random Cards to keep
- A method they can rerun whenever the question comes back
Who this suits
It works best for people who are genuinely undecided. Those who have already chosen a direction can use it to test whether that choice holds up.
- Polytechnic, ITE and university students deciding what to do after graduation
- Recent graduates looking for a first role, or rethinking the one they took
- Young working adults considering a change of direction
- Youth groups and student leaders, as a development session
How institutions and organisations run this
Unstuck is available to polytechnics, ITE, universities, youth organisations and public agencies supporting young adults at important education and career decision points. We co-design the framing with you first, so the session speaks to the decisions your group is actually facing, whether that is a first job, further study or something more open.
Facilitation is led by Yulia Saksen, a WSQ ACLP-qualified trainer and Certified Management Consultant (CMC).
C-Academy has been appointed by the National Youth Council (NYC) to deliver Unstuck: Design Your Next Move as part of its Discover programme, supporting youths in their school-to-work transition. Programme information and registration will be available through the Discover platform.
If you are a young person looking to join
You do not need to know what you want to do. That is the point of the session.
You will not be asked to fill in a personality quiz or sit through a talk about following your passion. You will interview someone as their future self, invent career ideas with Random Cards and Idea Dice, and score points with your team on a live leaderboard. You will leave with your next three moves written down.
Registration for Discover runs will be through the National Youth Council’s Discover platform, at no cost to participants. Your institution or organisation may also run it for its own group.
Common questions
How is this different from a careers talk?
A careers talk transfers information about jobs. Unstuck builds a method for making decisions under uncertainty. Participants do the work rather than listen to it, and they leave with something they made.
What if a participant still has no idea at the end?
That can happen, and it is not a failure. The measure is not certainty, it is movement: someone who arrived with no options and leaves with three to investigate has made progress. Every participant leaves with their next three moves, however clear their direction is.
Can this run for a whole cohort?
Yes. Each workshop takes up to 30 participants, so larger groups are split across more than one workshop. Tell us your group size at the enquiry stage and we will plan the format with you.
Does it need to happen in one block?
The core session works best unbroken. Where a schedule will not allow it, we split it across two shorter sessions with a short recap. Tell us your constraint at the enquiry stage and we will design around it.
What does the organiser need to do?
Nothing during the session. Before it, we ask for a short conversation about what decision your group is facing so we can frame the session correctly. Afterwards you receive a facilitation summary you can use in follow-up.
