For Educators

The RDAD Course

A hands-on career exploration course for high school, college, and vocational programs.

Built directly from the six principles in Bill Gurley's book Runnin' Down a Dream, this is a course that turns career exploration into real, hands-on work.

Students don't just think about what they might want to do. They investigate it, build a plan to get better at it, find mentors, build a peer network, get closer to where the work actually happens, and commit to giving back along the way.

The course can be structured to fit at any educational level ranging from high school to two-year, four-year, and vocational or technical programs. There's no fixed format it has to live in. Any school with a classroom and an instructor willing to guide students through the work can run it.

The Outcome

Every student finishes with an RDAD Portfolio — a body of real evidence documenting who they are, what they're pursuing, and the concrete steps they've already taken. For students who want to keep going after the course ends, that portfolio is also the foundation of an application to the RDAD Foundation for a grant to fund their next step.

The Curriculum

The Six Principles

Principle One

Chase Your Curiosity

Students explore multiple career hypotheses, moving from passive interest to active investigation.

Principle Two

Hone Your Craft

Students map the gap between where they are and where the best people in their chosen field operate, then build a plan to close it.

Principle Three

Develop Mentors

Students build a list of mentors to study from a distance and reach out to real people who could mentor them directly, then document what happens when they do.

Principle Four

Embrace Your Peers

Students form a small peer pod for accountability and support, and build a plan to keep that group going well past the last day of class.

Principle Five

Go Where the Action Is

Students figure out where the center of gravity is in their field, whether that's a city, an event, or an online community, and take one real step toward it.

Principle Six

Always Give Back

Students define their own way of paying it forward, to classmates, to future students, and to the people who helped them get here.

Each principle isn't a lecture topic. It's a module that produces something real: a piece of the student's RDAD portfolio.

Now Piloting

Schools Running The Course

Pilot School

Barry University

Miami, Florida

Running the course through their D. Inez Andreas School of Business.

Pilot School

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Kyiv, Ukraine

Founded in 1834 and one of Ukraine's oldest, most respected universities.

Pilot School

The Country Day School

Ontario, Canada

An independent JK-12 school offering the course as a high school elective.

Bring The Course To Your School

We're actively looking for schools, at any level, who want to bring this course to their students. Whether you're a university department, a high school looking for an elective, or anywhere in between, we'd like to hear from you. If you want to learn more about the curriculum, see the full syllabus, or talk through what it would take to run this at your school, reach out to us.

Email course@rdad.org

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