During this time frame, there weren’t many accessible resources about instructional design. I flopped and failed my way through two years of abysmal interviews that left me feeling more frustrated and confused than ever. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have anyone guiding me down this path. I was going to become an instructional designer. That’s what I do.” After hearing that I could get paid for a living to do this, my mind was set. Sensing I didn’t have a clue what these words meant, he took a deep sigh and then said, “You know how your students take online courses? Well, someone has to design those learning experiences. He proudly said, “I’m an instructional designer.” I stared at him blankly and in total confusion. I was having coffee with a friend one day and I asked him what his job title was. In 2013, I worked at a university as an academic advisor. You can see this with the countless posts on LinkedIn or Facebook with people asking the question, “How do I become an instructional designer?” I feel for those who write these posts because I asked this very same question 10 years ago. With this in mind, there is a cosmic shift to “purposefully” become an instructional designer. That is unthinkable from only a few years ago! Apple, Google, Tesla, Twitter, Spotify, Amazon, the Army, the Air Force, Harvard, MIT, the Portland Trail Blazers, and the New York Jets all have instructional designers now. What was once seen as a bizarre and niche role has now become a standard for most organizations. The pandemic essentially created the “instructional design boom” and put our field on the map. So many people have become aware of instructional designers and how they are beneficial to their organizations. ![]() ![]() While that worked back in the day, In my opinion, the accidental path isn’t going to be an option for moving forwards. If you talk to current instructional designers, you’ll often hear that they fell into their roles by “accident.” They volunteered to lead trainings and workshops at their organization or perhaps they created resources and video tutorials and before they knew it, they had a new title of instructional designer. The instructional design field has changed though and this has made the path to becoming an instructional designer confusing. Sure, it’s a job, and there are pros and cons just like with any other job, but at the end of the day, it’s a rewarding career. I think that’s great! I love what it is I do.
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