The course is called Design Your Life. It’s not about engineering, nor is it a psychology class. It’s based in Felician University’s Center for Innovation, and according to the Center’s Director Dr. Robert Clougherty it has students looking at important life questions, such as what major to select, using design thinking.

“The idea is that happiness and success are not the same and that most students are geared toward just trying to find success,” says Dr. Clougherty, “How do they find happiness in their lives? And that’s what design your life is about.”

The course is based on the book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived Joyful Life by Dave Evans and Bill Burnett, which serves as a textbook for the class. Practical, reflective, and creative exercises are utilized, for example “students keep a happiness journal,” to help them think in new and different ways about how to actual “build or design” their own lives. As Dr. Clougherty puts it “you take the best possible solutions and you prototype them, try and make a model of it, see how it can work. And then finally, you test those prototypes to really see what the best solution is.”

And while that might sound quite scientific, the course is actually human centered and empathy focused, making it “very different from a traditional hardcore research methodology.” As Dr. Clougherty puts it, “We’re not a University that focuses on passing on random skills – we’re a University focused on shaping and creating individuals.”

The course was underwritten by an AT&T Grant, and included mentors from both inside Felician University, as well as the business community such as Vernon Mayor Howard Burrell and Chilton Medical Center President Stephanie Bloom who also serves as V.P. of Atlantic Health System.

Plans for students and mentors to celebrate their final class with a dinner out were of course sidelined by the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the last class had to instead by held online. Hopefully, Design Your Life gave students some new tools for dealing with last minute changes and coping with adversity.

# # #

About Felician University

Felician University engages over 2,300 undergraduate, graduate, and adult students through programs in Arts & Sciences, Business, Nursing, and Education. Universal Franciscan values of social justice, compassion, and respect for human dignity serve as an inclusive foundation for transforming the lives of tomorrow’s leaders. Felician University’s education is ranked 3rd best return on investment for private colleges in New Jersey 2018 by the PayScale.com College ROI Report and is ranked #1 safest college campus in the state by niche.com.