Career Play: Integrating Wonder, Choice, and Joy Into Student Life-Career Planning

Career education often prioritizes assessment, linear planning, and the quest for the right answers. Alternatives exist that include more holistic approaches to undergraduate life-career decision-making. When discussing career planning and decision-making for college students, an important element often goes unnamed: the relevance of play. Play involves creativity, curiosity, and engagement. New graduates will hold and balance numerous paid and unpaid roles over the course of their lifetimes, and career play concepts can be intentionally integrated into holistic planning. As students prepare for uncertain work futures, they will need to employ the traits of adaptability, exploration, and lifelong learning to construct a holistic life-career. This article proposes a framework of career play that treats decision-making as provisional, purposeful, and student led. Drawing on the K–12 Pedagogy of Play and higher education scholarship, the three universal elements of play—Wonder, Choice, Joy—are translated into concrete practices for student affairs educators.