Career Tracks
How will it work?
The program utilizes a "Medical School clinical rotation" approach with participants rotated through semester-long experiential learning experiences in four potential career tracks. Two cohorts of fifteen students each were invited to participate in the first academic internship in January 2017 and 2018. For this first semester in the program, students were matched with a faculty mentor based on common interests in geoscience subfields and participated in research activities within the research group.
Semester 1
Internal Rotation
- Academics Track
Semester 2
External Rotation
(Lottery)
- Water Resources
- Energy Resources
- Geo-environmental Assessment
Semester 3
External Rotation
- Energy Resources, Geo-environmental Assessment
- Water Resources, Geo-environmental Assessment
- Water Resources, Energy Resources
From those who satisfactorily completed the academic rotation, 9 and 8 students were chosen by lottery to continue on to two professional rotations that began in Fall 2017 and 2018, respectively. Selected students submitted their order of priority of interest in possible career tracks (Energy Resources, Water Resources, Geo-environmental Assessment). Selections were made by weighting student priority, coursework preparation, and availability of intern placements (maximum of 3 participants in each field/rotation; tracks cannot be repeated). All students gave presentations at the end-of-semester symposium about their work and participated in evaluation surveys and interviews to assess the effectiveness of the program.
In addition, student participants attended professional activities aimed at improving both academic performance and professional career preparedness, as illustrated below.
Academic Preparedness
- Course selection for career tracks
- Report Writing
- Public speaking
Career Preparedness
- Resume writing
- Interview techniques
- Training in geoscience industry software
- Training in field and analysis skills for career tracks
Personal Development
- Time management
- Networking
- Self-efficacy beliefs
- Sense of belonging to geoscience community
Disclaimer
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 1600542. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
