(Photo by Noah Wulf via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED)
As the spring graduation season approaches, many university students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs in the United States and Canada are entering a critical period in their early careers. Some students may have already received return offers from internships; most are looking for new job opportunities on the market. It’s a thrilling and overwhelming process with many factors to consider: salary, job stability, career growth, company culture–choices that can shape professional trajectories for years to come.
Yet, one might wonder whether these students will carry their ethics education into their choices? Some students may prioritize financial security and career advancement, setting aside concerns about a company’s social and environmental impact. Their decision is straightforward. After all, companies with controversies often offer some of the highest-paid internships. Other students are more conflicted: aware of ethical issues, but ultimately persuaded by high compensation.
These are two common outcomes for many STEM students. Universities support this transition by building pipelines through internship programs and industry partnerships that often funnel students directly into full-time roles at companies with ethical concerns. Even though most STEM programs advertise that they want their students to contribute to social good, students are guided toward the most powerful and well-funded employers. So, ending up at one of these companies does not really feel like a failure of ethics. It feels like following a path that was already laid out.
If universities encourage students to work at companies with ethical concerns, then what is the point of requiring students to have an ethics education?
Why Universities Offer Ethics Courses
Professionals in STEM fields make decisions that can shape human life. Ethics courses in STEM programs are designed to help students learn how to use technical skills responsibly andconsider the human impact of their work. The majority of ethics courses are structured very similarly. Students practice reasoning through difficult decisions and learn how to balance innovation with safety and fairness. Ethics courses also prepare future professionals to follow ethical standards in their field and understand their responsibility as creators of technology.
Depending on the field of study, ethics courses commonly use case studies, role playing, class discussions, and project-based exercises to help students build their ethical reasoning. For ethics courses in computer sciences, students may examine the impacts of algorithmic bias, surveillance, data privacy, and the effects of AI. Whereas in engineering ethics courses, students may examine safety, environmental impact, and the duty to protect users and communities.
Some students may view ethics courses as a waste of time and tend to prioritize taking courses focused on learning technical skills they see as directly tied to employment. In competitive programs, anything perceived as “non-essential” can feel unnecessary. As a result, students may underestimate how ethical reasoning complements technical expertise. Ethical insight strengthens innovation by ensuring that technological progress aligns with human values.
The Reality of University Ethics Courses
Universities in the U.S. and Canada often present ethics courses as essential components of STEM education. However, universities simultaneously maintain partnerships with ethically ambiguous corporations and institutions, such as Amazon, Google, Raytheon, Microsoft, Palantir, Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Royal Bank of Canada, and Chevron. Many universities receive significant funding from these organizations for research in areas like AI, cybersecurity, mining, and aerospace engineering.
Such partnerships can provide more opportunities and career pathways for students, but they also tie academic research into military and harmful applications, including weapons development and surveillance technology.
It seems pointless to try to take an ethics course from a university benefiting from industries associated with violence. While campuses can sometimes feel like a bubble, the products and systems developed within these industries can have profound global ramifications. These are lived realities for communities worldwide who disproportionately bear the costs of technological and industrial expansion.
At the University of British Columbia (UBC), all Bachelor of Applied Science students must take an ethics course on the “impact of technology on society” or “sustainable development and environmental stewardship,” as well as two courses on “health and safety” and “professionalism, ethics, equity and law.” Most of these courses are already part of the program’s core curriculum to meet accreditation requirements. Some students will take the course MECH 400: Professionalism and Ethics in Engineering. As part of the course, students focus on the social responsibilities of engineers to the public and environment, and explore themes such as decolonization and climate change.
University Partnerships with Unethical Companies
Despite the inclusion of decolonization, Teck Resources is UBC’s largest mining engineering company partner, with a long-standing relationship exceeding $12 million in funding for the Faculty of Applied Science since 2001. It is also a major employer of UBC engineering students. James Olson, Dean of the UBC Faculty of Applied Science, once stated in 2024 that “with Teck’s help, UBC is building the mining industry of tomorrow.”
Teck Resources has a long history of environmental violations in Canada and abroad. The Elk Valley in the southeastern Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada, has long struggled with polluted waterways with selenium contamination from coal mines owned by Teck Resources. For decades, Teck Resources has been excavating entire mountaintops, causing serious water pollution and declining fish populations in the Ktunaxa First Nations’ territories.
(Photo by Washington State Department of Ecology via Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED)
The Ktunaxa have led a decade-long effort to hold Teck Resources accountable, but in June 2024, the mines switched owners to the notoriously controversial Swiss mining giant Glencore. Glencore will continue Teck Resources’ plan to expand one of the mines and continue operating into the 2070s.
In 2022, Teck Resources also faced eight charges filed by Chile’s environmental regulator. They claimed the mining corporation failed to comply with measures to avoid impacts on vegetation and animals at its Quebrada Blanca copper mine. The company did not follow the measures outlined in its environmental permit to protect local species and control emissions.
When Lockheed Martin Teaches Ethics
The University of Colorado Boulder offers the ethics course EMEN 5080: Ethical Decision-Making in Engineering Management as part of their Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program. The course is designed to help students navigate complex ethical dilemmas and “gain a greater sense of their ethical responsibility in both personal and professional environments.” As the program name suggests, Lockheed Martin is one of the engineering college’s top partners.
Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest weapons manufacturer. They make hypersonic missiles, bombs, drones, attack aircraft, and surveillance technology. The U.S. Department of Defense is the company’s largest customer, followed by allied governments including the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Israel. Many of whom purchase weapons through U.S. government foreign military sales.
Lockheed Martin’s weaponry is notoriously linked to the bombardment and murder of children. In August 2018, a Lockheed Martin missile hit a bus in Dahyan, Yemen, killing 40 children on a school trip. Recent reports also state that the U.S. military used an untested Lockheed Martin Precision Strike Missile in April 2026 to bomb a building where dozens of young girls were practicing volleyball, in Lamerd, Iran, killing at least 21 civilians. The same day, the U.S. military also used another Lockheed Martin missile to strike an elementary school in Minab, Iran, killing 175 people.
Partnerships and Pipelines with Companies in Genocide
United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese issued a report in 2025 naming several companies aiding Israel’s genocidal campaign on Gaza, including tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company), Amazon, and IBM. These companies are responsible for training intelligence personnel and granting Israel access to their cloud technologies used to enhance surveillance.
Albanese’s report also named several weapon manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, in supplying Israeli with fighter jets, drones, and helicopters. From 2019 to 2024, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) managed a Lockheed Martin Seed Fund connecting students to teams in Israel to help conduct weapons and surveillance research.
Lockheed Martin even hosts an annual “Ethics in Engineering Case Competition,” where over 70+ universities in the U.S. send undergraduate students to present their solutions to a fictional case that tackles various ethical challenges. As the purpose of the competition mentions, “ethics plays a major role in business decision-making where a single misstep in judgment can have consequences across the enterprise.” Their language doesn’t even have to hide what they are doing. “Ethics awareness” is framed as a way to protect the corporation.
(Photo by the U.S. Navy via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
Even as universities require ethics, they still feed students into a pipeline built on genocide. A student might work on Lockheed Martin-sponsored research as part of their undergraduate courses. Intern at Lockheed Martin over the summer. Be officially recruited by the company upon graduation. And finally, step directly into a role where they continue contributing to the development of weapons technology.
Ultimately, students are trained within systems that prioritize technical skill development aligned with industry needs.
Can You Work at Lockheed Martin Ethically?
No.
A student can tell themselves: “It’s not personal. It’s just a job. Many of my peers would do the same. This is just how it goes. If not me, someone else will do it. The job will just be a temporary step, a starting point, before I move on to something else. I could even use the experience to build my resume and eventually work somewhere that has a positive impact.”
But there is no way of getting around it. You cannot avoid or sanitize what Lockheed Martin does, nor any other weapons manufacturer, for that matter.
The Failure of Ethics Courses: Which Careers are Deemed Successful?
When universities prioritize recruitment pipelines and partner with corporations whose practices contribute to environmental and social harm, they signal to students that these career paths are both acceptable and desirable. The only way to be “successful” is to work at a well-known company. Many STEM students come to view employment at companies in big tech, aerospace and defence, manufacturing, government, and finance as the ultimate goal. These companies dominate the internship market and frame their unethical practices as “innovation.”
This leads to STEM programs becoming less about solving meaningful human problems and more about supplying talent to institutions that perpetuate them. Programs have moved away from improving the human condition to advancing corporate and defence interests.
This is not only a problem with university STEM programs. These are also questions being raised in liberal arts programs (international relations, economics, political science, anthropology, and so on), where universities also maintain partnerships with unethical companies.
So, how are students able to find another viable option except for working for these big companies when universities also reinforce the narrative that success comes from working at them? University programs must contribute to offering more just and sustainable alternatives. After all, for many students, these university programs are their first impression of their field. They look to universities for guidance on how to begin a successful career.
Edited by Khushi Mehta
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