Month: August 2025

Navigating Your Cultural Commute: A Scientist’s Approach to Vocation

The article discusses the integration of vocational discernment into a physics course at Pacific Lutheran University, inspired by a faculty workshop. Students engage in activities to explore their values and career paths alongside academic learning. The author emphasizes the importance of considering your cultural commute and the broader implications of vocational choices on your community of origin.

A series exploring the teaching of vocation in physics.

“The new vocation section was by far my favorite portion of the course and greatly impacted my post-university goals.”

“I wish I had done this assignment my first year of college.”

Students in my physics capstone course at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) shared these comments in their course evaluations about the new vocational curriculum that I introduced the last time I taught it. After reviewing these course materials, a colleague also wrote, “I am SERIOUSLY impressed by all that you have done with this course! It is amazing and I wish I’d had training like this when I was in college.” As a professor, there are moments when you know you’ve created something impactful. This was one of those moments for me.

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Callings Podcast Releases Highlights Episode from Season Five

NetVUE’s podcast Callings has wrapped up its fifth season with a bonus episode featuring highlights from various interviews. It offers valuable insights and advice for undergraduate students on understanding vocation and navigating life’s uncertainties. Guests discuss the importance of adaptability, resilience, and the complexities of pursuing one’s calling amidst challenges.

NetVUE’s podcast Callings has concluded its fifth season with the release of its annual bonus “Highlights” episode. It features clips from this season’s interviews, offering advice to undergraduate students on how they might think about vocation and the search for purpose and meaning in their lives. These excerpts are not only gems in their own right—representing the most interesting insights from the season—but they also provide listeners brief reflections that might be useful for classroom activities or points of departure for writing or discussion in their work with undergraduate students.

Guests include (top row, left to right) John Inazu, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, and Caryn Riswold; and (bottom row, left to right) Abel Chávez, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Jennifer Herdt.
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Interdisciplinary Minors: Bridging Core Curriculum and Vocation

The post discusses the intersection of systems thinking and liberal arts education. It advocates for integrating core curriculum with vocational studies, suggesting that a well-designed interdisciplinary minor can enhance students’ understanding of interconnected challenges. This approach fosters critical thinking and moral ambition, preparing graduates for modern workforce demands while addressing global issues.

My husband built his career in a Big Four consulting firm. Over the 16 years we’ve been together, I’ve learned a secondhand vocabulary of corporate buzzwords and skill trends—some useful, most, not so much.

Recently, after attending a leadership conference, my husband came home energized about “systems thinking,” which Forbes calls one of today’s most crucial leadership skills. At first, it sounded like the latest in a long line of self-aggrandizing slang—but the more I listened, the more I appreciated it.

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Guiding Students through Anomie’s Disconnection and Moral Discord

The series explores how historical sociological thinkers illuminate contemporary student struggles in finding their vocations amid societal challenges. This post highlights themes of anomie, technological disruption, and moral ambiguity affecting students’ mental health and identity. Educators are urged to model adaptive behaviors and foster discussions around these challenges to support student well-being.

The first post in a series on how some of the great sociological thinkers from the past can help us understand the struggle of today’s students as they explore and discern their vocations.

I start every class meeting by asking my students, “How are you all doing today?”  This is not a rhetorical question. I expect students to respond and express a feeling, a thought, even a complaint. At the beginning of the semester, I usually get positive responses—smiles or, “Doing good.” At mid-semester, the tone drastically changes. Students avoid eye contact, and the few who do respond say things like, “Stressed,” or just give me looks of quiet desperation.

What is going on? Do I happen to teach at an institution with an unusually depressed student population? I suspect not. I do not think the issue lies within the individuals whom I teach, but rather within the social context that deeply impacts their experiences in patterned ways.

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Write Your Life: The Vocational Gifts of Creative Writing

Creative writing pedagogy offers valuable insights for vocational teaching across disciplines. By emphasizing storytelling, community feedback, and personal narrative, educators can guide students in reflecting on their vocational journeys. Creative writing pedagogies foster specificity, helping students articulate their experiences while navigating challenges like self-doubt and imposter syndrome.

A series of posts on what creative writing pedagogy has to offer vocational teaching in any discipline.

At a recent workshop on vocation at my university, I heard a colleague use a beautiful metaphor to describe the vocational journey: “It’s like driving a car at night: you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I love this metaphor, and it’s one I know well as a creative writing instructor because the original quote refers not to vocation but rather to writing. This metaphor’s source is a Paris Review interview with American novelist E.L. Doctorow, in which he describes the writing process.

It’s not surprising to find wisdom about writing popping up in conversations about vocation. After all, when we ask students to reflect on their vocational journeys, we’re usually asking them to tell a story about themselves, and creative writing is the discipline of storytelling. That’s why—in this post and those that follow—I offer several frameworks, tools, and activities from the field of creative writing that instructors in any discipline can use as they integrate vocation into their teaching and advising.

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