Career Compass

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Career Compass provides options, tips, suggestions, and strategies for how students can obtain critical skills, experiences, and competencies in order to launch their geoscience career.  This growing series of Career Compass Infographics is intended to help students, faculty, parents, and advisors identify key developmental pathways and milestones towards a range of careers based on geoscience discipline or occupation.

Available Career Compasses

Why Career Compass

Career preparation awareness and information for many geoscience students begins when they choose their major in college or university and begin to attain practical skills such as internships, leadership positions, or have research experiences. Often, geoscience alumni engage with academic institutions to help and share their success stories and current trends and information within their industry, but it can be limiting in terms of its scope, distribution, and sector. Faculty mentors and advisors strive to help students recognize and articulate these skills that they have mastered while a student’s engagement at professional society meetings and exploring professional society resources helps build their networks and add to their social capital. Often students land their first job or first internship but fail to understand which competencies are most important for long term employment and advancement into higher level positions.

AGI along with its many partner societies and geoscience organizations and employers are committed to creating defined pathways for success in various industries and sectors. These pathways begin with tips and strategies as a student gains critical skills, experiences, and competencies, then transition into entry level positions into the workforce and ultimately lead up to higher levels within the organization. These pathways while linear and well defined during the early years especially while a student, can diverge and create complex networks and avenues for entry into and transitioning to different positions as one advances to more mid-level and senior level positions.

Content Partners

We would like to acknowledge the assistance of our content partners, without who we would not be able to produce the Career Compass infographics.

  • Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program
  • American Association of Geographers
  • American Geosciences Institute
  • American Geophysical Union
  • Americaen Geophysical Union Sharing Science Program
  • American Meteorological Society
  • Arizona State University School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning
  • Draper Aden Associates
  • Earth Science Information Partners
  • Geological Society of America
  • HRP Associates, Inc.
  • Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
  • Kat Cantner
  • Kuper Consulting LLC, Helena, Montana
  • Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
  • Legendary Entertainment
  • Michigan Technological University
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • National Association of Geoscience Teachers
  • National Earth Science Teachers Association
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Education Office
  • National Center for Atmospheric Research
  • To The Cloud ED
  • University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
  • UNAVCO
  • University of Oklahoma - School of Geology and Geophysics
  • University of Tennessee, Knoxville
  • University of Texas at Austin - Jackson School of Geosciences