Is It Too Early to Talk About Careers with High Schoolers?
I spend my days working with high school students, so “Isn’t it too early?” or “I have plenty of time!” comes out of their mouths a lot when I bring up the idea of a future career or post-secondary option. As an agricultural education teacher, I have a great opportunity to share about our one of state’s largest industries, but agriculture is not for everyone. Traveling with students allows me to showcase our state from east to west and north to south, but I’m still always looking for ways to expose them to new ideas. As a young teacher, HirePaths has helped me with this task! I hope this example of my monthly schedule helps you use these resources in your own classroom.
September: This is the month when school is still fresh and a video goes a long way in a classroom. To help show my students what career options are available in our great state, I started each week of the month by showing a different Cool Careers episode.
October and November: In a school setting, these months bring scary vibes and thankfulness. As a teacher who uses HirePaths, I worked to eliminate the spookiness and embrace being thankful with the lesson plans for teachers developed by teachers! Two of my favorites were Is College For You? and Career Exploration developed by fellow Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers.
January: After what felt like 10 straight snow days at the beginning of 2025, we hit the ground running using the Bingo worksheets in all of my classes. I love this lesson because it is lighthearted, allows kids to be engaged and on the hunt for something, and covers a topic that juniors and seniors like to ignore and younger students have no idea about: careers.
February: This month brings love and lots of candy. And while those are both important, I want to make sure my students know what they DON’T want to do. To accomplish this, I used the Know Your NO! lesson plan. This lesson leads students through the HirePaths website on a search for careers that do not interest them, helping them narrow down from a (sometimes overwhelming) list.
March: Spring sports begin, activities are at an all-time high and navigating through a school hallway is chaos at any given time, which is the best part of being a teacher! To help combat the craziness that comes with the spring, we dove into the Real Success Stories featured on the easy-to-navigate website. I challenged students to find three stories they were interested in and to create a short infographic online about that person and their career. The students displayed their printed infographics and participated in a “gallery walk” so they could see all the careers and ask clarifying questions.
I hope that whoever reads this (parent, teacher or student) realizes that it is, in fact, never too early to start talking about careers or post-secondary options, and specifically how important those topics are here in the great state of Kansas. As a CTE teacher, I see how vital it is to have a strong workforce in our state. And keeping our students here after graduation is just as important. I encourage all Kansans to reach out and engage with all that HirePaths has to offer for you and your family.
Cade Fiske was a 2024-2025 HirePaths Teacher Ambassador. He teaches at Mission Valley High School.
