Becoming/Wise
Purpose Practicum
Launch Your Future
Students spend years preparing for college. Almost none spend time learning who they are.
Built exclusively for IvyWise, the Purpose Practicum brings bestselling author, researcher, and NYU Stern Professor Suzy Welch’s Becoming You methodology to students at a pivotal time in their lives.
Over 12 weeks, students combine personalized 1-1 coaching, data-backed assessments, and experiential learning to gain a deeper understanding of their values, natural aptitudes, and economically viable interests, while exploring future opportunities and developing practical decision-making skills.
They emerge with something most people don’t learn until much later in life: a deep understanding of who they are, what drives them, and how to use that self-knowledge to shape what comes next.
The experience culminates in a personalized Becoming Blueprint that brings everything they’ve learned into four personalized future pathways built from each student’s own data, uniquely suited to them.
Why Self-Knowledge Matters
The decisions students make can shape the opportunities available to them for years to come.
Yet many students make those decisions based on external expectations rather than internal understanding. They choose activities, academics, internships, majors, or careers because they think they “should.” They pursue opportunities that look impressive. They compare themselves to their peers. They follow paths that feel familiar, even if they don’t feel right.
The strongest foundation for any future isn’t simply academic achievement. It’s understanding who you are and using that knowledge to shape what comes next.
When students understand what drives them, what they’re naturally wired to do well, and what genuinely energizes them, they approach every opportunity with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose.
That’s exactly what the Purpose Practicum helps them discover.
Self-Knowledge Shapes the Future
Values
Aptitudes
Economically Viable Interests
Open Your Aperture
See where the world is going.
A key part of the Purpose Practicum is exploring 12 unique Megatrends.
Students explore technologies, 135 industries, and global shifts reshaping the future, learning, as Professor Suzy Welch says, to “open their aperture” and consider possibilities they may never have imagined.
Instead of looking only at today’s menu of options, students learn to see what’s coming next, and where they might fit within it.
For students who aren’t sure what they want to do with their lives, this perspective can be transformational. And for those who already have a direction in mind, it broadens their thinking, encourages curiosity, and prepares them for a future that will continue to evolve.
Learn Skills that Last a Lifetime
Good decision-making is a skill.
Students face increasingly complex decisions about what to study, which opportunities to pursue, how to spend their time, and which paths are truly right for them. Yet few are ever taught how to make them.
Through the Purpose Practicum, students learn proven frameworks for making thoughtful decisions. They learn to weigh consequences, anticipate risks, and approach important choices with greater clarity and confidence.
Knowing how to make good decisions is a skill students will use for the rest of their lives.
What Students Experience
1:1 Coaching
- One-on-one guidance from a Becoming You Certified Coach helps students interpret their results, uncover new insights, and connect what they’re learning to the choices ahead.
Data-Backed Self-Discovery
- Scientifically grounded assessments and experiential exercises reveal students’ values, natural aptitudes, leadership traits, and economically viable interests, building a deeper understanding of who they are and where they can thrive.
Functions, Industries, and Megatrends
- Go beyond familiar careers to explore functions, industries, Megatrends, and emerging opportunities. They begin to see where their unique interests and strengths might intersect with where the world is going.
Practical Decision-Making Skills
- Learn proven frameworks to weigh consequences, anticipate risks, and approach important decisions with greater clarity and confidence. They develop practical decision-making skills they can use throughout high school, college, and beyond.
A More Authentic Personal Narrative
- As students develop the language to articulate their values, strengths, and aspirations, those insights naturally strengthen their IvyWise counseling experience, from extracurricular and academic choices to essays, interviews, and future planning.
The Becoming Blueprint
- The experience culminates in a Becoming Blueprint, a personalized report revealing four future pathways. Students leave with a clearer picture of who they are, where their strengths and interests can lead, and the possibilities ahead.
From Self-Knowledge to Smarter Choices
What students learn in the Purpose Practicum has immediate, practical value.
For high school students, greater self-knowledge can inform or refine choices about courses, extracurricular activities, colleges, and potential majors, while helping them articulate their values, motivations, and aspirations more authentically in college application essays and interviews.
For college and graduate students, those same insights can help guide academic choices, internships, leadership opportunities, career paths, and the kinds of roles and industries they want to pursue.
Students also learn to look ahead, exploring the 12 Megatrends shaping the future and where new opportunities may emerge, while developing practical frameworks to make thoughtful, confident decisions along the way.
They can put that self-knowledge to work right away, making more intentional choices about what they study, the opportunities they pursue, and the future they want to build.
An Exclusive IvyWise Experience
Who Has Access?
Included for students enrolled in IvyWise Unlimited College Admissions Counseling programs and IvyWise Premier College Admissions Counseling programs.
Available as an exclusive add-on for students enrolled in IvyWise College Admissions Counseling programs.
Available for non-IvyWise students and includes bespoke research and recommendations based on the Becoming Blueprint outcome, and two hours of college or grad admissions counseling.