In order to support schools in building and actualizing career-ready Portraits of a Graduate, Wayfinder partnered with Roadtrip Nation. Through this collaboration, Wayfinder integrates Roadtrip Nation’s library of career-focused videos into our Activity Library, offering students engaging, real-world insights into diverse career paths. These video-based activities help students connect their learning to tangible career opportunities, equip them with future-ready skills, and provide meaningful career exploration opportunities. Additionally, by providing regionally tailored content, this partnership ensures that career exploration opportunities reflect local communities, optimizing relevance and impact for students.
By leveraging Roadtrip Nation’s content alongside Wayfinder’s future-readiness framework, schools can help students develop the confidence, skills, and knowledge needed to navigate their post-graduation pathways. This partnership allows districts to access dynamic career readiness materials, including localized career stories, interactive activities, and industry-aligned skills development. With upcoming integrations like Roadtrip Nation’s Roadmap API and enhanced curriculum alignment, Wayfinder continues to strengthen its role as a comprehensive future-readiness solution for schools and districts looking to align with their Portrait of a Graduate initiatives.
The Roadtrip Nation model is built around career conversations that help learners develop confidence, purpose, and agency alongside invaluable 21st century skills like communication, collaboration, and problem-solving. Since 2001, Roadtrip Nation has been sending learners of all ages on road trip experiences across the country to talk to inspiring people in a broad range of careers, then sharing their stories and insights through their eponymous award-winning public television series, which reaches 90 million households annually. In classrooms and other learning environments, students model these career conversations through Roadtrip Nation’s project-based course, the Roadtrip Nation Experience. The course incorporates Roadtrip Nation’s story-driven career exploration tools into five video-based lessons to help learners discover their interests, explore possibilities for their future, and complete their own Interview Project with someone in their community.
Over the past 20-plus years, numerous third-party evaluations and studies of these programs have been conducted by various groups, including the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University, and Inflexion, a nonprofit education consulting group. Six key outcomes were found across all different engagements with Roadtrip Nation’s experiences—from the intensive, multi-week commitment of taking a road trip as part of Roadtrip Nation’s documentary series, to completing the more flexible five-lesson course. These outcomes also stand out for students engaging with Roadtrip Nation’s digital career exploration tools. (Read the full report on these six core outcomes here.)
Across Roadtrip Nation programs, participants demonstrated increases in:
1. Career Engagement: Expanded Career Exposure + Engagement
Learners developed a greater awareness of career possibilities and pathways, and this translated into increased goal-setting and knowledge about how to explore and pursue their career interests. Most importantly, hearing real stories about career journeys humanized the process and made them feel that they weren’t alone.
- 61% of students who used the Roadtrip Nation course said they discovered career paths they hadn’t previously considered
- 21% of students reported increased goal-setting, noting that they know the actions they must take to meet their goal
2. Confidence: Growth in Self-Perception
Learners’ confidence, motivation, and sense of agency grew through Roadtrip Nation programs as they gained a greater sense of their own interests and encountered stories of people from similar backgrounds and experiences
- After the road trip experience, 92% of participants reported that they were more confident exploring new career opportunities
- After using the course, there was an 18% increase in students who felt empowered to make things happen for themselves
3. Education + Relevance: Stronger Connection to Education
Widening the lens of possible careers helped students feel that school is relevant to their lives and who they want to be—now and in the future. That realization resulted in improved academic performance for learners in Roadtrip Nation programs.
- 69% of students taking the course agreed that it helped them view their education as relevant to their lives
- Students in the Roadtrip Nation course increase their GPAs by a factor of two compared to a control group
4. Skill Development: Increased Career + Communication Skills
Learners developed new skills, especially through the Interview Project. These critical 21st century skills—adaptability, problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and more—are extremely valuable for learners as they prepare for an unpredictable future of work.
- 65% of Roadtrip Nation students reported that the course helped them improve their communication skills with adults
- 86% of students answered affirmatively to the statement, “I can rise to the challenge when I’m presented with challenging work”
5. Social Capital: Increased Social Capital
Providing opportunities to develop social capital can increase access to resources blocked by systemic barriers. Learners developed relationships with mentors and supporters and felt empowered and motivated to continue making connections after the end of their programs.
- 79% of road trip participants reported that they now know role models and mentors they can look to for guidance and advice
- 92% agreed that they have the ability to seek out role models and build social capital
6. Well-Being: Greater Sense of Well-Being + Purpose
Learners who took part in Roadtrip Nation programs reported a greater sense of purpose and comfort with who they were. They affirmed that their experiences positively impacted their mental health and gave them more hope for the future.
- 96% of road trip participants said the trip had a positive impact on their sense of purpose
- There was a 15% increase in students who stated that after using the course, their future appears brighter than their past
All of these outcomes work together to support students in achieving their education and career goals, even as the future of work shifts and changes. However, among these six outcomes, three stand out as specifically strengthening students’ ability to adjust and grow to meet an ever-changing future: career and communication skills, social capital, and sense of purpose. The experience of the interviews and career conversations was life-changing and eye-opening for road trip participants and students alike—but one of the most important effects was in the development of new skills in problem-solving, communication, and building resilience in the face of challenges.
In the Stanford implementation study, researchers noted, “Students used metacognitive strategies to learn the ‘big ideas’ of academic content; they persevered by using different approaches to overcome obstacles; they incorporated and provided peer feedback to execute group work; and they collectively demonstrated a strong increase in self-efficacy.” Even more importantly, these interview experiences helped students and road trip participants see the value of building a network of connections and gave them the skills to continue building critical social capital, even after their road trip or course had ended. This social capital can help protect against an unpredictable future of work, as it provides a well of resources and information that grows with them, supporting their evolution and ensuring their continued success and well-being.
To learn more about how Wayfinder partners with Roadtrip Nation to empower schools to drive Portrait of a Graduate implementation with engaging and relevant college and career readiness programming, download our white paper, Portrait of a Future-Ready Graduate: Why Human Skills Matter More Than Ever.
