‘What are your values?’ Workshop teaches UMD students to align job searching with ethics

The Arab American Association of Engineers and Architects (AAAEA) and the Egyptian Student Association (ESA) hosted an “Ethics in the Job Search” workshop to help students build careers that align with their personal values. The event took place on May 5 in the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building.

In the DMV region, careers at defense companies are highly sought after, and local universities like UMD are major targets for recruitment. 

“Something I have experienced a lot as an engineer—and I know many people struggle with—is being able to find jobs and companies that respect our values,” said junior Yassmin Abbouchi, a bioengineering major and president of the AAAEA chapter at UMD.

Abbouchi said that she hosted the workshop after hearing from peers who also struggled to find jobs that align with their beliefs. She noted that the engineering field often feels heavily centered around weapons and defense companies. 

To bring the event to life, Abbouchi partnered with Christine Alexander, a faculty lecturer in the Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program at UMD. Alexander teaches the STS Scholars first-year colloquium and ENES200: Technology and Consequences: Engineering, Ethics, and Humanity. With a background in education and applied improvisation, Alexander often facilitates experiential learning through reflective activities.

Alexander said she drew inspiration from her past experience with Gestalt Theatre, an approach to therapy that includes elements from improvisation and performing arts. She described her time there as “very reflective.”  

Alongside Abbouchi, the event was co-organized by junior Rend Nayfeh, a kinesiology major, and senior Jannah Nassar, a double major in marketing and operations management and business analytics. Together, they worked with Alexander to design a workshop that emphasized self-reflection and ethical career planning.

It feels difficult “to talk about values without doing some reflective work,” Alexander said. 

In the first part of the session, students selected from notecards with different values and introduced themselves using the value that they identified with the most. This was followed by a group discussion about whether their values may change and what factors may change them. 

The second part of the workshop was adapted from a lesson in the course ENES200. Students received worksheets to guide them in researching a company of interest—particularly, finding the company’s code of ethics or values statement—and evaluating whether the company’s actions align with their stated principles.

The workshop closed with an open discussion, allowing students to pose questions peer-to-peer, focusing on the central question: “How do we engage in these conversations?”

“We don’t really get to talk about [these topics] in our normal classes,” said Misha Khan, a junior computer science major. Khan expressed her appreciation of a space to connect with others who share similar values. 

Alexander encouraged students to take the ENES200 course to gain an understanding of ethics in their careers. She also advised students to reflect on their values and get involved with activities that embody them, citing volunteering with organizations at the UMD as one example. 

Alexander said, “[Do] anything that gives you the time and space and the kind of friction to really encounter and contemplate: ‘What are your values?’”

_{Image credits: Cover photo by Safiyah Fatima for Al-Hikmah.}