More control over your future with designing your future
The future does not yet exist, but many people think about it daily. The course Designing Your Future, part of the Honours Programme at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs and taught by Bram Hoonhout, helps students approach their future with confidence. This course is open to second-year students in their first semester.
Reframing and practical tools
Designing Your Future is inspired by a popular Stanford course and addresses challenges such as perfectionism, performance pressure, and imposter syndrome. Bram Hoonhout, who struggled with these issues himself as a student, aims to help students navigate them more effectively. The course is particularly valuable for students without an academic background in their family, as they may need additional support in developing certain skills.
The course is based on five principles:
- Learn to reframe limiting beliefs.
- Be open to different future scenarios.
- Work in small steps rather than big leaps.
- Engage with others and build relationships.
- View failure as a valuable learning process.
Additionally, the course encourages a bias to action – not overthinking but taking action. Small steps can lead to significant results. Students practise this in a safe group environment, for example, by reshaping limiting thoughts or making use of each other’s networks. The course combines insights from design, psychology, and career development and provides students with concrete tools to actively shape their future.
By the end of the course, students will have gained experience in reflecting on their short- and long-term goals, sources of energy and energy drains, and their current situation regarding work/study, health, and leisure. They will have explored their talents, considered different future scenarios, expanded their network, and learned to ask for help when needed.
Students’ experiences
Marianna Fruch from Italy is studying International Studies and taking part in the Honours Programme. She wanted to challenge herself and gain new knowledge and skills: ‘I can proudly say that it exceeded my expectations.’ She is highly enthusiastic about Designing Your Future: ‘This course really gives you a lifelong method: to tackle problems, reframe negative beliefs, be happier, and appreciate the important things in life.’
Justine Servais from France took Designing Your Future primarily to improve her networking skills: ‘I chose this course to become better at networking. I felt like I was falling behind because I don’t have family members working in my field. For months, I kept telling myself: tomorrow, I’ll create my LinkedIn profile, next term, I’ll go to all sorts of university or study association events to network… But of course, I never did it. I thought a course that would push me to take action would be a good idea, and it was!’ She highly recommends the course: ‘This course stands out from the rest, and the lecturer gives you the energy to be proactive.’
Emilia Berghuis, a Dutch-Finnish student, grew up as an expat and has lived in Finland, Morocco, Russia, and France. She is studying Security Studies and plans to specialise in Intelligence and National Security or the Cybersecurity Governance track during her master’s. Designing Your Future has provided her with various tools to achieve her dreams: ‘One of my long-term goals was to figure out where I wanted to go on exchange and (hopefully) get accepted. To achieve this, I scheduled a meeting with my Exchange International Officer and asked third-year Security Studies students, who were on exchange at the time, about their experiences and how they liked their universities. All the information I gathered helped me make my decision, and I was accepted into my first-choice university: Sophia University in Tokyo!’
Designing Your Future provides students with the tools to shape their future , whether through practical exercises or by breaking through limiting thought patterns. Students who take this course move forward with greater clarity and confidence in their future.