Inform Students about Career Opportunities in Geoscience

Written by Carol Ormand, based on ideas compiled from the 2005 workshop on Developing Pathways to Strong Departments of the Future and the 2007 workshop on Strategies for Successful Recruitment of Geoscience Majors.

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The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates a greater need for geoscientists than the number graduating each year. Click on image to see a larger version.

Presentations in Introductory Courses

One of the recommendations from the October 2007 workshop on Strategies for Successful Recruitment of Geoscience Majors was the active, intentional use of introductory geoscience classes. Several participants spoke of the effectiveness of making a presentation about opportunities within the department's geoscience programs and about career opportunities in geoscience during each introductory course. Below are some examples of such presentations.

Department of Geosciences, San Francisco State University

This presentation (Acrobat (PDF) 2.4MB Dec6 07) shows geoscientists at work in a wide variety of settings, provides salary information, lists some of the primary skills developed in a geoscience program, and describes many of the career opportunities available to students who successfully complete each of the department's degree programs.

Department of Geology and Geography, Georgia Southern University

This presentation (Acrobat (PDF) 4MB Dec6 07) focuses on the process of choosing a major and on the wide variety of career opportunities available to people with degrees in geology and geography, including some salary information. It also presents many examples of prominent people with degrees in the geosciences. Finally, it describes why geoscience degrees will be increasingly valuable in the future.

Alumni Networks

A recommendation that arose from the January 2007 workshop on The Role of Departments in Preparing Future Geoscience Professionals was to keep track of your department's alumni, so that you can give specific examples of what students have done with degrees from your program. (If you publish a department newsletter, sent to all of your alumni, your alums will have additional incentive to keep you informed of their whereabouts.)

Carleton College Alumni Webpages

The Carleton College Geology department maintains a webpage of links to alumni webpages, arranged chronologically by year of graduation. One particularly nice aspect of this list is that it includes many people who have chosen careers outside of geology.

Bowdoin College Geology Alumni Webpage

The Geology department at Bowdoin College also lists where their recent alumni are now and includes a wide variety of occupations.

University of North Dakota Alumni Occupation Database

The UND Department of Geology and Geological Engineering has an online alumni occupation database, based on information its alums have supplied via an online form.

Speaker Series

Many geoscience departments have a visiting speaker series; incorporating some talks specifically about geoscience careers is an easy, effective way to promote this information. Your alumni can be an excellent resource for such talks.

Several participants in the January 2007 workshop on The Role of Departments in Preparing Future Geoscience Professionals mentioned that Homecoming Week is a good time to invite your alumni to give talks (or be part of an alumni panel), as they may already be planning a trip to campus.

Additional Resources & References

• Starting Salaries for Geoscience Graduates

  from the American Geological Institute. These data are from 2007, showing starting salaries for geoscientists with Bachelors, Masters, and PhD degrees.


• Chris Keane, from the American Geological Institute

  presented data on National Recruitment Trends and Future Drivers (Acrobat (PDF) 844kB Oct28 07) at the 2007 workshop on Strategies for Successful Recruitment of Geoscience Majors. His predictions of career opportunities based on those data are optimistic. Videos of the workshop presentations, including this one, are on this page.

• Our webpages on professional preparation

  feature interviews with geoscience employers and recent hirees, geoscience employment data, and profiles of geoscientists in a variety of careers.
• Fiske, 2001 , Put Your Science to Work: The Take-Charge Career Guide for Scientists, American Geophyscial Union, Washington, D.C.
  This book offers practical career advice to people looking for their first science career, experienced researchers in academia and students trying to decide what they want to do with their lives. It explores current and future career options for those with scientific training and offers different strategies for getting the job that you really want.
• Marketing Earth Science Education, an article from Gaea (the newsletter of the Association of Women Geoscientists), May, 2002, details the results of a study conducted by the Department of Earth Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The department had been experiencing a trend of declining enrollments. By altering their recruitment efforts to address student interest in careers, the department was able to reverse the enrollment trend in its classes.
• NAS, 1996 , Careers in Science and Engineering: A Student Planning Guide to Grad School and Beyond, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
  This book offers guidance to students on planning careers, especially careers outside of academia, and discusses how to set and achieve education and skills goals that are necessary for particular careers. Various career paths are illustrated with profiles of science and engineering professionals.