Defined Careers

College and career readiness platform that provides career exploration and experiences

Defined Careers is designed to enhance college and career readiness in the classroom. It is the only supplemental curriculum resource that provides K-12 students with the opportunity to explore AND experience careers in the classroom.

Defined Careers takes a holistic approach to helping students discover their interests while making critical connections to real-world, post-graduate career opportunities. Following an assessment of their values, interests, and study preferences, students are provided with a personalized list of careers to experience through hands-on projects.

This deeper learning approach allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills of a specific career and empowers them to build the critical future-ready skills they need to succeed.

Learn more in this video!

Preparing Students for Future Success

Career-Connected Projects

Provide students with multiple hands-on projects across all 14 career clusters to deepen understanding.

Student Portfolios

Our easy-to-navigate platform includes a portfolio of each student's projects from year to year allowing students to showcase their work.

Performance Plan & Data

Our customizable data management system allows you to track student performance towards your Portrait of a Graduate or district initiatives.

Expand Pathways with Personalized Career-Connected Learning Experiences

In every Defined Careers course, students actively engage in hands-on projects that offer a real-world perspective, mirroring the experiences of industry professionals to expand career exploration and experience for all students. These hands-on tasks encourage students to move beyond basic exploration in the utilization of higher-order thinking skills with real-world career scenarios. Students to develop and demonstrate their knowledge, problem-solving skills, and strengths within a specific career.

Commercial and Industrial Designer

You are an Industrial Designer for Dick’s Sporting Goods. Your role is to develop and improve concepts for everyday outdoor products.

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Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters

You are a Pipefitter and Steamfitter for the Murphy Contracting Company. You will be responsible for designing and laying pipe for the Soccer Stadium.

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Game Designer

You are a Game Designer, and your role is to design a new character and storyline for a new Super Mario game.

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Hazmat Technician

Your role as a Hazmat Technician for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources is to help clean up and remove oil from the coast of Louisiana impacted by an oil spill from a large oil tanker.

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Baker

Your role as a Baker is to follow instructions from a recipe closely while understanding the needed ingredients and making sure of their quality.

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The Impact of Defined Careers

In this study, you'll learn how Defined Careers engaged middle school students in career exploration and experiences. We'll share feedback from students and teachers on the impact Defined Careers had on teaching and learning. To learn more, download the study.

Read the Research

Additional Features & Resources

Aptitude Test

Common App

Financial Literacy

Work-Based Learning & Virtual Internships

Defined Careers Solutions

Defined Careers for Elementary

Defined Careers provides career exposure to elementary students across all 14 career clusters to excite them about their futures and engage them while building future-ready skills.

Defined Careers for Middle and High School

Defined Careers provides a career exploration and experience solution using real-world PBL alongside additional opportunities such as virtual internships, future planning tools, personalized recommendations, and more.

Success Stories

Spotlight

Sharon James, Executive Director of Secondary Education for the Broken Arrow Public Schools in Oklahoma

Research has shown us that students should have a general idea of what they want to do for a career by the end of eighth grade. We need to immerse students in career exploration at an early age and allow them to explore careers more often. Defined Careers helps us do that without putting the bulk of the hard work on our teachers or counselors. We have found Defined Careers to be very user friendly and our teachers can use the program easily in their classroom. We hit the jackpot when we began using Defined Careers and I know our students will benefit from this program!
- Sharon James, Executive Director of Secondary Education for the Broken Arrow Public Schools in Oklahoma

Success Stories

Spotlight

Kasie Roden, Director of STEM Education,Grand Prairie Independent School District, Texas

By using Defined Careers and taking a project-based approach to learning STEM content in the context of actual career scenarios, our students are more engaged in their learning. Defined Careers helps us provide our students with better learning experiences that lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the content.
- Kasie Roden, Director of STEM Education,Grand Prairie Independent School District, Texas