It is important to recognize what we value in a career. What do you think is important to your students? Perhaps they have never thought about the future and what they would like to do. Do they value loving their work over money? Do they value working with people over the prestige of a job title? Perhaps they are seeking a career that will help them improve their socioeconomic status and allow them to make a difference in the world!

Prompting students to visualize the future assists them in determining what values are important to them now and what values they foresee being important to them in the future.

Ultimately, the ways in which an individual’s priorities align with the four basic work values correlate to an individual’s attitude and behavior toward work.

The truth is that work to value congruence—that is the degree to which the work one does aligns with one’s work values—is significantly related to job satisfaction. Let’s ensure student success by helping them to connect these two powerful dots!

The goal of this section is to prepare you to link basic work values to STEM careers, increasing interest and awareness for your students. Share what you have learned about STEM careers with your students. Here are some strategies to help you do so:

Super Strategies

• Guide students through an activity that aligns work values to STEM careers. Go to napequity.org/counselors for a worksheet.
• Practice recognizing student work values in their conversations with you, or among their peers. Acknowledge the work value and specifically relate it to STEM careers.
• Host a class discussion on why people choose careers, and guide the conversation toward increasing student awareness of opportunities in STEM.

It is important that educators encourage and emphasize the accessibility of STEM careers to all students. There are pathways and opportunities for every student.