05/01/2025
Coloring with Career for Gen Z to The Greatest Generation
By Stephanie K. Harding
Why use visual arts in career development? Visual arts encompass creativity and lead to the revelation of untapped emotions and cognitions, clearing the pathway to career growth. Using visual arts also allows students to communicate and relate their feelings in a tangible and significant way. The use of visual arts in career development in university settings and beyond has the potential to help students of any age grow in their self-discovery, personal wellness, and career development.
According to de Valverde et al. (2020), “creative thinking can be viewed as a key part of the cross-disciplinary ability to orient oneself. Creativity can be used to produce new ideas about how to invent oneself, to invent one’s career and life path” (p. 65). Additionally, Gladding’s (2021) research showed that several mental health benefits are produced when using visual arts in counseling. These benefits include:
- Allowing the unconscious to wake up and realize their internal untapped emotions;
- Creating hope; as creativity is enacted, it enables understanding how to grow, develop, and change, leading to hope for the future;
- Boosting mood and decreasing anxiety levels;
- Improving physical health by reducing heart rate, easing muscle tension, and lowering blood pressure.
Creative Workshops for Students
After attending a session hosted by de Cuadra et al. (2020), two of my University Center colleagues and I were inspired to create a workshop series using the “Picture Your Career” workbook developed by Brooks et al. (2020). We formed a team and designed six workshops within a series called “Coloring With Career” for students and alumni based on the open-source workbook.
In Spring 2021, we offered virtual and in-person workshops on vision boards, wandering maps, anxiety management, goal setting, and new pathways. We also facilitated two activities described by Brooks et al. (2020): a) grounding rocks, in which students visualize their responsibilities as rocks so they could visually see the extent of their time or stress, and b) the iceberg activity, in which students visualize what is missing in their job search endeavors. Career service professionals could adapt each of the workshops to any life stage or station, enabling students across campus to participate.
The Framework: The 4-D Roadmap and The Wellness Wheel
During each workshop, we incorporated the 4-D Roadmap, developed by Brooks et al. (2020). Career services professionals can use the 4-D Roadmap within a multi-generational setting or at certain ages. We asked students to think about the 4-D’s (discover, develop, design, deliver) throughout the workshop to help them understand and determine where they were in their career development.
The Wellness Wheel and Balancing Act
We also incorporated a wellness wheel, depicted below, during the workshops. For example, during the Balancing Your Life workshop, we told participants that the wheel was an idealistic way to approach holistic wellness and that only non-existent perfect people excel in complete wellness at all times. We instructed students to pick an area or two of wellness in which they were doing well and a couple that they needed to improve. We encouraged them to keep these areas in mind as they completed the balancing rocks activity within this workshop.
Courtesy of the Texas Tech University Career Center
Activities for Students
Activity 1: Draw a Stack of Rocks
To begin the workshop activities, we introduced the idea of life responsibilities by using a pile of fake rocks purchased online from Etsy. The students were given markers and paper and instructed to draw a stack of rocks, labeling each rock with a key responsibility currently in their life.
Activity 2: Reflect on Responsibilities
For the second activity, we told them to reflect on their pile of rocks. Were any of the rocks taking the bulk of their energy and time? What were they missing due to the number or size of the current stack of rocks?
Activity 3: Consider Priorities for Wellness
For the third activity, we encouraged them to write down some simple steps to improve their wellness. These methods could be relaxing and centering, such as going for a walk, spending time in nature, or practicing mindfulness. The methods could also be active and exciting, such as going to a concert, playing a sport, or going out with friends. We told them to think of strategies that worked for them as they pursued their personal wellness and work/life/school balance.
Activity 4: Share New Knowledge
For the fourth activity, we requested that they share their answers with the group. We gave them the physical rocks to use as they explained to the group what responsibility each rock represented for them. We then asked them to answer questions from the following:
- What did you learn through the grounding rocks activity?
- What surprised you about this exercise?
- What changes have you decided to make in balancing your work/life/school?
- Was it easier for you to choose reflective or active ways to cope with the stress of your responsibilities?
- Where do you find yourself in holistic wellness, as mentioned earlier? What areas are you doing well? Where do you need to improve?
- How does this activity help you gain more balance or improve your wellness?
Through verbal feedback and in later workshops, via an event survey, we discovered that the students enjoyed the rocks, the artistic component, and the mental health emphasis of this workshop. They reported that they felt equipped to make changes to improve their holistic well-being and communicated insights into their career development. Some of the insights included the comprehension of how many activities and responsibilities they were balancing and how it impacted their stress levels and anxiety. They shared that having learned the methods listed above and other tools to help them step away from their larger responsibilities will help them cope with these issues.
Others found that they spent too much time on certain responsibilities or activities. For some, their focus was socializing; for others, they overemphasized working or studying, which led to feelings of isolation and loneliness. Some of their bigger “rocks” needed to be demoted to become smaller “rocks” so that other areas of wellness could be prioritized.
Given the success of this workshop series, we were excited to adjust and create different workshops and webinars for our students in the future. Other career service professionals can also incorporate visual arts into their work with students and clients of any age, whether within a workshop, individual appointment, or classroom to advance self-awareness, insight, and positive wellness.
References
Brooks, K., Foy, G. J., & Mills, E. (2020). Picture your career workbook. Vanderbilt University Career Center. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/career/picture-your-career/
Cuadra, A., Meeker, C., & Rizzotto, A. (2020). Coloring with career: Virtual career exploration [Conference presentation]. Southern Association of Colleges and Employers Conference.
de Valverde, J., Thornhill-Miller, B., Patillon, T. V., & Lubart, T. (2020). Creativity: A key concept in guidance and career counselling. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 26(1), 61–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477971420903736
Gladding, S. T. (2021). The creative arts in counseling. John Wiley & Sons.
University of New Hampshire. (n.d.). Wellness wheel assessment. https://extension.unh.edu/health-well-being/programs/wellness-wheel-assessment
Stephanie K Harding is Assistant Director at the Texas Tech University Career Center (UCC). She has nearly two decades of student services experience in higher education, including roles at Texas Tech University, the University of Texas at Tyler, the University of North Texas, Tyler Junior College, and Kilgore College. She enjoys helping Texas Tech students and alumni with career counseling and acts as the UCC liaison between the university’s Military Veterans Program and The Graduate School and is a Fostering the Future (former foster youth) Campus Champion. She supervises graduate students who are counselor interns at the UCC and teaches RaiderReady (First-Year Experience and Senior Seminar) courses for the university. Stephanie has a Master of Education in Counseling Services from the University of North Texas and a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies from Texas Tech University. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and a member of the Texas Career Development Association, Texas Counseling Association (TCDA), National Career Development Association. She is a past TCDA President and currently serves on the TCDA Resource and the Higher Education. She is active in her church’s outreach to foster and adoptive families and leads a support group for these parents. She is married to her college sweetheart and has three grown daughters, all of whom are Red Raiders! Readers may reach her at stephanie.k.harding@ttu.edu.