If this question has been on your mind, you’re not alone.  SCIENCE 2DL1 is designed to give you dedicated space in your academic schedule to explore it in a meaningful, supported way. 

Instead of feeling pressure to choose one “correct” career path, this course gives you structured time to reflect, test career ideas, and build possible directions forward. You’ll explore your life and work values, research real career paths, collaborate with peers, and try out ideas through conversations or small real-world experiences.  

Along the way, you’ll start developing answers to questions like: 

• What kinds of careers are actually out there? 

• What do those jobs look like day-to-day? 

• What might fit with both my degree and the kind of life I want to build? 

Many students feel like they’re supposed to have everything figured out. In this course, you’ll join a supportive community of peers who are asking similar questions and discover that you don’t need to have it all mapped out to start moving forward. 

Here’s what alumni of the course have to say: 

“This course equips you with tools you can use for the rest of your life. Whether you know what you want to do with the rest of your life or not. Yes it can give you directions in exploring future possibilities of your career, which it helped me beyond my expectations, but it also gives your tools to set yourself up to improve yourself and your career skills that are applicable across all future possibilities. It will push you out of your comfort zone” 

Design Your Science Career gives you dedicated space in your academic schedule to learn about different career paths, test out career ideas, collaborate with supportive community of peers and figure out how to build a professional life that aligns with your values. 

• No “Right” Answers: Forget the pressure to have it all figured out. We teach you how to work with uncertainty, not against it. 

• Build Multiple “Plan A’s”: You won’t just build one career path. You’ll create multiple, actionable visions for your future, giving you the freedom to pivot, adapt, and stay curious. 

• Move from Thinking to Doing: You’ll conduct real-world career ‘tests’ through conversations and experiences, test-driving career paths before committing to them. 

• Community Support: You’re not meant to design your life alone. You’ll work alongside a supportive “design team” of peers, in collaboration and not competition.  Why work with your own 5 career ideas when you can get 20 great ideas through peer brainstorming? 

• Making the most of your time at Mac:   As a student, you have access to so many resources, services, events and opportunities.  This course will help you make the most of campus resources and build your network. 

We know that you’re busy with academic classes, work, research, volunteering and personal responsibilities and you might think “I don’t have time for this course.”  But – you WILL need to plan for your life after McMaster.   

Why not make space in your school schedule and do this important work with guidance, support and resources? 

Here’s what alumni of the course have to say: 

“If you were to tell me when I initially enrolled for the course how much networking with classmates, talking with professionals in my field and voluntarily attending networking events there would be; I genuinely would’ve probably dropped the course. But having that motivation build up from the support from each class from classmates and Laura, it made me want to take that chance. Be more open to things and just doing them. I would’ve never done this on my own, but having that time constraint of it being an assignment or task; enhanced the motivation of wanting to do that. But, also being so clueless coming into the first lecture I feel like I have a general plan I have been lacking and putting off for majority of my educational experience.” 

Find out what students are saying here: McMasterSCEC – YouTube

This course is for you if: 

• You don’t know what career options exist for your interests and program 

• You feel overwhelmed by the “what’s next?” question after graduation. 

• You’d like to make space in your academic schedule to do career planning 

• You feel worried about choosing the ‘right’ career 

• You want to figure out how to build a life that’s meaningful and aligned with your values, but also uses your skills and academic background 

• You’re inspired to solve specific problems or have a positive impact on the world, but don’t know which careers can lead to that 

• You can only name 3-5 career paths and feel pressure to ‘choose’ from that limited list 

• You’d like to meet and connect other science students in a non-competitive, collaborative environment 

• You’d like to make full use of the career resources available to you as a Faculty of Science student 

This course is open to students Level II or above in any program in the Faculty of Science.

The work in this course is a bit different from what you might be used to in other classes. There aren’t exams, and you won’t be memorizing large amounts of content. Instead, most of your work will involve self-assessment, exploring & researching, trying things out, and reflecting on what you’re learning as you go. 

Over the term, you’ll be doing a mix of activities like: 

• Exploring real career paths
  You’ll spend some time looking into roles, fields, and opportunities connected to your interests using labour market information and other resources to get a clearer picture of what’s out there. 

• Talking to people
  At some point, you’ll reach out to someone working in an area you’re curious about and have a short conversation with them. This is often new for students, but you’ll be given guidance on how to approach it. 

• Trying small “prototypes”
  Rather than committing to one path, you’ll test out ideas in low-stakes ways – conversations, attending an event, or exploring an experience that gives you a bit more insight into a career direction you’re considering. 

• Working with other students
  A lot of the class time involves guided, structured discussions and small-group work. You’ll be sharing ideas, hearing how others are thinking about their next steps, and learning from those conversations. 

• Reflecting on what you’re learning
  You’ll do short, regular reflections where you think through what stood out to you, what’s shifting or changing in your thinking, and what you might want to try next. 

Course schedule and grading details: 

• Science 2DL1 – Design Your Science Career – Syllabus
• 6, 2-hour in-person ‘studio’ sessions (every second week across 1 term) 
• You have to attend 5 out 6 studio sessions in-person 
• Given the personal and reflective nature of this course content and material, the course is graded on a Pass/Fail basis. 
• Assignments focus on reflection, exploration, and learning from experience rather than tests or memorization 

What alumni of the course have said: 

“The prototyping component was the most valuable to me as it pushed me to take action into benefiting my future. Sending emails and saying that I am going to reach out to a bunch of people is great, however, without action it is all for nothing. This course forced me to take action and have conversations surrounding future careers and opportunities.” 

“I feel like the biggest challenge was the lack of information on the type of careers that are available to me and that component of market research was the most useful in my personal career design process”

Then this is the perfect course for you! 

You don’t need a clear plan to take the course. All you need is curiosity and a willingness to explore a few directions.  A big part of the course is learning how to move forward without having everything figured out. 

What alumni of the course have said: 

“I used to think my peers have their career path in mind and are following it linearly but now I know through so many conversations of shared experience how many of us have set backs like not making the honours program right away or not meeting a GPA/class grade cutoff, and how we all pivot and divert from the “one” life plan we have.” 

Yes – absolutely. 

Students who come in with a strong plan can use the course to test it in a more realistic way – talking to people in the field, getting a clearer sense of what the day-to-day actually looks like, and building alternatives in case things change. 

You’ll develop better self-knowledge to write stronger applications, broaden your network of connections in your field of interest, plan for realistic alternative career or education plans and clarify your beliefs and values. 

This course is designed and instructed by the career education team in the Science Careers & Experience Centre.  Aside from being experts in career development and planning, they were also specially trained through Stanford University’s Life Design program to deliver this design thinking-based career course. 

Our career educators only work with Faculty of Science students, so the content is completely customized for your academic experiences and career interests.  

Meet the instructors below! 

Science 2DL1 is offered in the Fall & Winter terms. It’s a 1-unit, Pass/Fail course.

Enroll in Mosaic when you’re doing your course enrollment. The course code is Science 2DL1. 

You can enroll in Design Your Science Career starting June 12, 2026 for Fall 2026 or Winter 2027. 

You won’t be required to perform or speak in front of a large group, but you will be expected to talk in small groups and participate in conversations. Many students who are quiet in other classes find this course’s interaction manageable because it’s structured and guided. 

This course doesn’t have a textbook – the ‘content’ is your life experiences, aspirations, values, skills and career goals.  You’ll share this information with your peers and instructors as you work together to explore career options and generate creative ideas to test them out.   

The classroom environment is comfortable, supportive, collaborative and approachable.

What alumni of the course have said: 

“It’s an amazing way to get to know people at the same stage of their life in a non “competitive”. So much of our life planning comes from listening to what others have done, what’s out there, where the combination of our interests and education can lead, and reaffirming that everyone is having experiences and setbacks.” 

“Talking things out with peers is always the most beneficial to me. I am not confident in my own ideas but when I reason them out with someone else, it makes it more realistic and achievable.”

Build your own 3-unit hands-on experience pathway by combining Design Your Science Career with other 1-unit courses offered by the Office of Undergraduate Research! 

Design Your Science Career is all about ‘testing’ career ideas through hands-on experience. Why not ‘test out’ a career in research, for credit?   

Career Design + Research Awareness
SCIENCE 2DL1 + SCIENCE 1SA1 + SCIENCE 1SC1
Use DYSC to explore your future, attend Science research seminars, and preview what graduate student research life can look like. 

Career Design + Research Testing
SCIENCE 2DL1 + SCIENCE 1SA1 + SCIENCE 1SB1
Use DYSC to clarify what you want to test, then use a seminar and research volunteer experience to explore whether research fits. 

Career Design + Research Skills
SCIENCE 2DL1 + SCIENCE 2SA1 + SCIENCE 2SG1
Use DYSC to clarify direction, build research-readiness, and test a structured group research experience. 

Career Design + Graduate Pathway Preview
SCIENCE 2DL1 + SCIENCE 1SC1 + SCIENCE 2SA1
Explore whether graduate study fits while building research skills and confidence. 

Read the OUR 1-unit course descriptions and find instructions on how enroll on the OUR website. 

Please note: These pairing ideas are examples to help you think creatively about how SCIENCE 2DL1: Design Your Science Career can complement other Science learning experiences. Course availability, eligibility, prerequisites, enrolment capacity, timing, and degree/program requirements may vary. Students are responsible for checking the Academic Calendar, Mosaic, and their My Academic Requirements report, and should consult their academic advisor before enrolling to confirm whether a course fits their program, level, and graduation plan.