History

• Career clusters were created in 1994 as a part of the Educate America Act, according to the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium. These career clusters are designed to group together similar career types that may appeal to a certain type of person. The overall goal of this initiative is to prepare students to face an increasingly competitive job market.
  
  

Function

• There are 16 different career clusters as recognized by the Career Clusters Series. Within each of these clusters are varying amounts of specific careers. For instance, within the career cluster of Agriculture and Natural Resources, there are many careers, including mining engineer, logger, fish and game warden and groundskeeper. Students can explore each cluster based on their own interests, and in some cases by taking a personality test that pairs them with specific clusters.
  
  

Significance

• Allowing students to peruse different career pathways can make them aware of jobs they may have never known existed before. Additionally, they will learn the educational and training requirements for jobs so they can choose whether to attend college or a trade school, or seek some other path.
  
  

Benefits

• Career clusters have other important uses, such as introducing students to real-world concepts of responsibility and how to attain goals through planning. They give students an idea of how much money they can make in real careers as well as what is required of them in higher education and the job market.
  
  

Misconceptions

• The career cluster system is not designed to definitively place students in specific careers. It is very common for students to change interests or life goals often, so the main goal remains to merely expose them to career ideas, not set them on one track they cannot change.