Hi, there

I'm currently an instructional designer. I've been doing this for serveral years and feel like this can't go futher any more. For instructional designers, what is the potential career path?

Thanks everyone who would like to share your insights...

Hi Maple --I think it depends a great deal on your specific goals and interests. If you want to stay in this arena (e.g. training and development) you might want to look into the bigger picture of performance consulting, or even bigger - organizational development. These are just two of many options.

Personally, I've come full circle and I'm finding that I'm much, MUCH happier in the classroom working directly with learners than mucking about with all of the political BS one must muck with when doing the "behind-the-scenes" work. I still do the performance consulting and design work, but only because I have to in order to keep gainfully employed.

Focus first on your goals and interests.

Hi Fnantic Facilitator

Thanks so much for your enlightening opinions and suggestions.

I personally had classroom training experience as well, and also found it very enriching experience. It's interesting to hear that "behind-the-scenes" work is full of politics...Maybe everywhere else has this part, isn't it?

Thanks for reminding me of goals and interests. I'm pretty happy about "training and development" and would like to stay in this area. I'll also look into other areas like organizational development, which sound challenging!

Thanks!

I have a colleague who was in ID for 15+ years and has just recently moved into Quality Control/Editing. As far as marketable skills go, the QC and Editing have the flexibility to be used for a number of tasks in learning development as well as more organizational development (as suggested by Fanatic).

Depending on your comfort zones, you may also want to consider moving into a project management role. After your ID experience, it may come quite naturally.

Food for thought!

Beej - you make a great point about marketable skills. It also made me think about the fact that when one is ready, it's usually prudent to try to branch into a field that is not always considered overhead.