Tracking Geoscience Pathways from the Undergraduate Degree through the Years as an Early Career Geoscientist

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The American Geosciences Institute’s Workforce Program has recently launched AGI’s Geoscience Student Exit Survey and the Survey of the Geoscience Workforce in an effort to provide more detailed information about the career pathways of early career geoscientists from their undergraduate degree through their first five years in the workforce. These surveys are attempting to answer long unknown questions related to the motivations of students for majoring in the geosciences, their experiences while working towards the degree, their future plans immediately after finishing their terminal degree, and their development in the workforce as they establish themselves in a career. With these surveys, AGI will be able to provide a more in depth presentation of the supply, demand, and human dynamics of the geoscience workforce. We find this effort to be very timely with the increased national focus on the STEM workforce, as well as recent discussions within the geosciences community requesting more information about the students’ transition into the workforce after graduation. For AGI to be successful in this project, we need the support of geoscience departments nationally and internationally.

  • Carolyn Wilson*
  • Christopher Keane*
  • Heather Houlton*
  • American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2013