Section 3. Graduate Programs and their Interface to Geoscience Work
Geoscientists in Support of Society
A healthy and vibrant economy and society depends on the steady
production of graduate degrees. The production of new master’s and
doctoral degree graduates consistently predicts increased growth and
innovation (Aghion, et al., 2009). With growing challenges such as
climate change adaptation, issues of resource availability, and natural
hazard reduction and mitigation, maintaining a productive pipeline of
master’s and doctoral graduates in the geosciences is critical to our
future. Though public perspectives on higher education center around the
bachelor’s degree, this is only the foundational step for driving
science innovation and problem solving. Bachelor’s graduates in the
geosciences (and other STEM fields) who stay in the profession either
continue into graduate programs or pursue careers in specific technical
roles that apply innovations and discoveries made primarily by doctoral
level geoscience professionals.
Success in the geosciences will be defined by the ability of master’s
and doctoral graduates, and the graduate degree programs that produce
them, to tackle emerging challenges and advance the geosciences.
Graduate programs must monitor and recognize the changing needs and
applications of the geosciences, and must be agile with curricula,
instruction, and student opportunities. They also represent an incubator
for the future of the discipline by developing the next generation of
educators, researchers and thought leaders. Although about half of
geoscience doctoral graduates pursue careers in academic research and
teaching, they only represent a small fraction of the total geoscience
workforce (8%) (AGI analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). With
current pressures on academia related to enrollments and funding
post-pandemic, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the
total number of academic positions are not expected to grow over the
next 10 years. But with ongoing retirements and changing societal needs,
the next generation of academic geoscientists will need a new portfolio
of skills and strategies for success as they will be responsible for
educating the future workforce. This core function of graduate degree
holders is pivotal for the discipline’s success. Success will require
this next generation of educators and leaders to work across the
discipline to maximize opportunities in the evolving professional space
with a myriad of new opportunities, such as the increasing role of
professional services companies across the Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric
Sciences with their application and advancement of the science.
The Operational Framework
One of the greatest strengths of the U.S. higher education system is the
ability of institutions to innovate their own approaches to degree
programs. This creativity is especially evident at the graduate level,
where degree innovations have flourished beginning with the MBA in 1908,
and many new approaches since that time, such as the Professional
Science Master’s degree.
Within this diversity of degree programs are dominant structural
frameworks in which graduate programs fall. Central are the two
fundamental degree levels: master’s and doctorate. A second dimension is
the nature, purpose, and expression of research in the degree program.
The third structural dimension is the organizing principles of the
programs: whether students progress through programs in a cohort or
individually, or some hybrid approach.
Based on the AGI survey of geoscience graduate program structures, 73%
of U.S. geoscience departments granting graduate degrees offered
doctoral programs, while 27% only provided terminal master’s degrees.
All doctoral granting programs also award master’s degrees. Almost all
master’s programs awarded Master’s of Science degrees, with only 8%
reporting awarding Professional Science Master’s degrees.
Master’s and Doctoral Degrees
Geoscience employers and academic participants in the workshops agreed
on the distinct purposes and expectations of the master’s versus the
doctoral graduate. Importantly for the graduate, the degree received
affected the hiring decisions of employers, including academic
employers. Employers agreed that the types of skills needed for master’s
and doctoral graduates were the same, but the level or depth of
competency differed both with degree and with the type of employment.
Employers expected that master’s graduates have developed a broad skill
set, and that doctoral students have a greater depth of competency, and
more expansive technical skills.
Fundamentally, master’s graduates are expected to know how to solve
problems but are less likely to have experience defining research
questions or fully articulating the broader relevance of their research.
Doctoral graduates are expected to have broader backgrounds and to have
conducted self-starting research. They should know how to identify and
think about problems and how to solve them, and they have more
experience and practice.
Role of Research
Research was consistently recognized by academics and employers as
central to any graduate program in the geosciences. Importantly, the
research process was seen as a primary method for students to develop a
wide range of scientific, technical, and core professional skills, such
that research was not viewed as just an end in itself. Employers
especially viewed evidence of research experience and accomplishment as
critical in their hiring processes.
Doctoral research was universally recognized as being independent and as
building a student’s ability to conduct novel investigations, and to
plan, manage, and execute these activities. They need to define the
question, design the project, create a proposal, and justify doing the
research. They have a longer timeframe to solve problems and to reach
higher levels of accuracy. They are the driver of their research and
receive less direction from their advisor than would a master’s student.
Those advisor interactions are centered more on reviewing progress and
results throughout the project. What distinguishes a strong doctoral
researcher is a deep dive into one subject, the ability to discover, own
and solve a problem independently, and a high level of creativity and
innovation.
Doctoral research may be viewed by some non-academic employers as too
specific to be directly impactful on their business, so it is critical
for doctoral students to clearly demonstrate their deeper understanding
of the technical and core professional skills developed through their
research, in addition to content and research-related skills. All
employers are seeking leadership, innovation, out-of-the-box thinking,
and mentoring skills. They recognize that tinkering is an important and
critical luxury of a doctoral degree that is central to fostering these
creative capabilities. All U.S. doctoral programs have a strong emphasis
on research, and as such need to ensure that key professional skills are
well integrated into the effort and clearly demonstrable by the student
without losing a strong research emphasis.
Academia is a critical employer for doctoral graduates with about half
of these graduates employed in some form of academia. At the 2022
workshops, preparing doctoral students for academic positions was
discussed. These students need to be exposed to the fundamentals of
academic institutions as a business, to understand the larger picture at
the institution, and to know what to expect in their role as an academic
beyond the expectation of research. Doctoral students need to know how
to mentor students and how to teach effectively. They should be given
opportunities to mentor undergraduate or less senior graduate students,
to teach classes, to experiment with different teaching styles and to be
constructively critiqued and evaluated on their instructional practice.
Doctoral students also need to understand the broader professional and
stakeholder community and have a global perspective. They need to
develop an understanding of the kinds of innovative research they can
propose that will be funded, and get practice in writing compelling,
concise proposals and constructing realistic research budgets.
Being successful as an academic or in industry or government involves
differences in mindset and it is important to learn the cultural and
practice differences, and how to shift between these, whether they make
a shift in employment sector, or work collaboratively with non-academic
partners. Having doctoral students rotate through and work in different
labs or with different research groups will expose them to different
styles of management and mentorship.
Master’s programs may offer thesis and non-thesis options. Often
programs that require a thesis are both doctoral preparatory or, as
noted by employers, also workforce preparatory. Non-thesis programs are
normally terminal master’s degrees where graduates expect to enter the
non-academic workforce. However, across the board, non-thesis does not
mean no research, but rather that they engage in different modes of
research, with different intents.
Master’s research projects are narrower than doctoral projects. Master’s
students are commonly provided with a research problem, and they work
under the direction of their advisor, learning the research process as
much as conducting research activities. They learn how to solve
problems, work on a shorter time scale, and ideally know when their
results are sufficient.
Master’s programs with a non-thesis option are not the same as
coursework-only master’s programs. Universally, the non-thesis option
programs require either a capstone project or a case study, and almost
universally require public presentation of their results and an oral
defense of their work. These non-thesis options tend to be more limited
in scope, however they still provide opportunities for students to
develop research-related skills, including, for those pursuing
non-academic careers, core professional skills. Employers indicated a
preference for students who have completed a master’s thesis because of
the expected skills development from the research experience. Thus, it
serves non-thesis programs well to focus on ensuring that the research
experiences within their programs also develop this suite of skills in a
demonstrable manner so students can showcase their accomplishments in an
e-portfolio or through interviews.
Master’s students are more likely to seek employment on completion of
their degree, but their level of expertise can carry over into a
doctoral degree program, especially for thesis-based master’s students,
they develop skills and initiate and complete a body of research that
could form the basis of a doctoral dissertation. They have developed
some awareness of what has been done before, conducted a critical
evaluation of the literature, and may have identified where there are
gaps and further work needs to be done.
Employers recognized that master’s students may initially need more
direction and support once hired as they are still developing their
independence.
Employers recommended that master’s students be introduced to problem
identification and approaches to finding solutions in courses, and that
more instruction and practice in critical thinking skills be embedded
into these courses. They also felt that master’s students would benefit
from more leadership training, and the insertion of some business skills
into their geoscience coursework.
Cohort and Non‑cohort Programs
When looking broadly at U.S. STEM graduate programs, even among the
broader models, there are two fundamental structures being used:
individualized programs (non-cohort) and cohort-based programs. Within
the geosciences, cohort programs are a more recent development as
compared to other disciplines, and are mostly relegated to master’s
programs, whether in terminal master’s departments or as separate
programs within doctoral-granting departments.
Individualized, or non-cohort, programs are what most geoscience
academics will recognize as the traditional approach, where a student,
working with an advisor and likely a program and/or research committee,
will craft a coursework plan that meets departmental requirements but
also addresses their research needs. A student’s progress in research is
usually managed by the advisor and committee members. This approach
allows students flexibility in terms of their coursework and research
focus. Students can tailor their educational experience to their
specific interests, goals, and schedules. This model is well-suited for
students who have a clear research focus, require flexibility due to
work or personal commitments, or prefer working independently.
As of 2018, 59% of doctoral departments and 55% of terminal master’s
departments exclusively used the non-cohort model across their graduate
degree programs.
Advantages of individualized programs:
- Greater flexibility in course selection and research focus
- Ability to work at your own pace
- Potential for interdisciplinary or unique research projects
- Opportunities for self-directed learning and growth
- More individualized guidance from advisor and/or committees
Cohort-based programs group students together based on the time of
enrollment or a specific program within a department, so they proceed
through the program together, taking the same courses and working on
projects or research in parallel and sometimes collaboratively.
Beyond coursework, cohort programs can also include common comprehensive
exams, opportunities for group or collaborative research, and
opportunities for group advising and dialogue with faculty, providing a
broader exposure to the scope of research within the department.
Additionally, 70% of cohort programs offer additional specialty
certifications (e.g., GIS, energy or IT management, etc.) either within
the cohort program or for general access both by students within the
program or externally. The presence of these certificate programs aligns
with the preponderance of cohort programs producing terminal master’s
degrees.
This model can provide efficiencies for departments with large numbers
of graduate students, especially if those students are not in
traditional thesis programs. For students, cohort programs can foster a
sense of community, support, and networking, which can be highly
beneficial for both academic and professional development.
In the geosciences, 23% of doctoral departments reported having programs
(usually master’s) that used cohort structures, and 25% of terminal
master’s departments in geosciences reported programs using cohort
approaches exclusively. The remaining departments, 18% for doctoral
departments and 20% of terminal master’s departments, had a mix of
programs that used cohort and non-cohort structures.
Enrollments in terminal master’s cohort programs were steadier over time
than in individualized programs. For doctoral departments, a similar
pattern was observed, with cohort programs having substantially steadier
enrollments and individualized programs experiencing enrollments varying
two to three times as much as cohort programs. It is also worth noting
that cohort programs, which almost all co-exist in departments with
traditional programs, have very different business models: many of the
students in these programs are self-funding, and all departments with
cohort programs report receiving support from private foundations, as
compared to 62% of doctoral and 42% of terminal master’s departments
utilizing non-cohort models. Also, the pedagogical approaches of cohort
programs facilitate effective graduate education for a broader
population of students.
Core advantages of cohort‑based programs:
- Stronger peer support and collaboration
- Networking opportunities with fellow students
- Structured curriculum and more definitive timeline
- Enhanced group learning experiences
Graduate Program Culture
Beyond the observable structure differences, graduate programs across
the country have different academic cultures. Master’s only programs
commonly enroll graduate students focused on diverse professional
outcomes, including graduates going elsewhere for a doctoral degree. In
a subset of programs, most graduates go on to employment in a specific
sector, and the coursework and theses are designed to develop the
knowledge and skills needed for that profession. This entangles the
success of the program with the health of the targeted economic sector.
Employers and academics briefly discussed professional, usually
non-thesis, master’s degrees and whether they facilitated students
achieving their career goals. Professional Science Master’s degrees
focus on real-world problems and are done in conjunction with an
employer. These degrees and dual degrees with business (MS-MBA degrees)
or other interdisciplinary degrees that blend business and/or law with
STEM fields aim to prepare students for the private sector. Their
advantages include that they help develop business acumen in students
(Moran, 2021; Moran et al., 2009), often take less time to complete, and
usually don’t require a research-based thesis. However, employers were
forceful in saying that they still valued the importance of conducting
research, as it strengthens the students’ ability to think critically,
solve problems, present research in writing and orally, and complete a
major project.
Programs exclusively or primarily focused on doctoral degrees are
research-focused and a common (if often unstated) expectation that
graduates will go into academia, or potentially government labs or
federal agency research positions. Doctoral programs heavily focused on
these outcomes need to increase their awareness of the professional
paths outside of academia, as about half of doctoral degree recipients
pursue non-academic paths (Figure 3.9b). The recent growth in large
start-ups, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), and the private
sector developing their own modeling capabilities provide a much wider
set of opportunities for finishing doctorates. Doctoral programs at
institutions that also have strong terminal thesis-oriented master’s
programs are generally more aware and accepting of different
professional outcomes and scaffold skills between degrees.
The trajectory of students in a graduate program directly impacts the
eventual outcomes for those students. Given a rapidly changing
geoscience profession, it is important to utilize pedagogical approaches
that integrate core knowledge with the key skills needed both in
academia and in industry (see Section 4: Skills Framework). It is also
important not to allow different expectations to develop for academic
and non-academic professional directions, as student career choices and
the field itself often change over the longer duration of doctoral
programs.
Another cultural issue impacting graduate programs is that the ability
to do doctoral research is dependent on the extramural funding that
faculty can generate and on the available institutional facilities,
which are themselves a product of both institutional resources and
longer-term faculty research success. Resource-rich graduate programs,
whether through endowments, strong institutional investment, or highly
successful PI’s, can often support curiosity-driven, blue-sky research.
At less internally resourced institutions, or those supported by
specific industries, student research commonly has a more targeted
and/or applied focus.
Program research and associated career opportunities also vary within
the geosciences. Vibrant graduate programs will recognize the
opportunities as ways to foster specific skills and scientific
advancements that not only enrich the post-graduation opportunities for
the students but represent amplifiers for their graduate programs. The
increasingly important role of professional services companies in the
Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences are creating a myriad of unique
opportunities. For the earth sciences we see an increased focus on
applied science in the field and the need for increased development of
novel data and analytic techniques. In the atmospheric sciences, the
role of machine learning and artificial intelligence has exploded, and
these companies are often at the forefront of new application spaces for
the science and leveraging these new advances. Ocean science is seeing
new opportunities in advanced data acquisition and analysis and machine
learning opportunities in the search of subsea resources and analysis of
ocean dynamics for environmental and climate monitoring.
Geoscience Disciplines
Geosciences includes Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, with earth
sciences being the largest in terms of degrees awarded and geoscience
employment with 1481 master’s degrees and 890 doctoral degrees awarded
(2020 Directory of Geoscience Dept. Survey). According to NSF (2021),
the atmospheric sciences had 217 master’s graduates and 156 doctoral
graduates in 2019. Ocean Sciences has 144 master’s graduates and
136 doctoral graduates in the same year.
In the results of the survey of recent geoscience graduates, the
respondents overwhelmingly come from earth science-oriented programs,
but many of those are also multidisciplinary with active atmospheric and
ocean science activities. From these results, we see some general trends
in specialization between the degree levels (Figure 3.1a,b). Geology is
the largest sub-discipline, constituting about half the master’s
degrees, and about a fourth of the doctoral degrees. Overall master’s
degrees are more application oriented (e.g., GIS & tech, geological
engineering) than doctorates. For doctoral degrees, planetary sciences,
Earth sciences and hydrology show the largest increases relative to
master’s degrees, and degrees in climatology, petrology and physical
oceanography are also awarded. Regardless of the geoscience discipline
or subdisciplines, employers and academic participants agreed on the
skills and competencies needed by graduate students to be successful in
the current and future workforce. These geoscience disciplines are
employed in a wide variety of occupations (Figure 3.2).
The Successful Graduate Department
Ultimately the driver for change is to make graduate programs more
successful, which means understanding what constitutes success. The
survey of graduate granting departments asked how a department defines
success for themselves as an entity, and separately, how they define a
graduate student as having been successful. These definitions of success
(Figures 3.3, 3.4) likely extend not only from the internalized values
and expectations of educators, but also from external pressures such as
deans and alumni.
Departments define their own success largely by the outcomes of their
graduates (Figure 3.3). The identified measures of graduate success are
primarily employment and degree completion, and to a lesser extent for
doctoral programs, publication in peer-reviewed journals, the ability to
conduct independent research, and contribution to the geoscience
profession through involvement in professional societies. Some
departments also noted specific internal metrics, such as departmental
funding, the number of papers published in high-profile journals, the
number and amount of grants awarded to faculty, a positive departmental
culture, and a strongly connected alumni network.
Figure 3.1a. Field of Degree, Master's 2021–22
Percent of Respondents at Degree Level
Reported field of degree of geoscience Master's U.S. graduates for the 2021–22 academic year. American Geosciences Institute. Source: Data from the 2021–22 AGI Survey of Recent Geoscience Graduates
Figure 3.1b. Field of Degree, Doctorate 2021–22
Percent of Respondents at Degree Level
Reported field of degree of geoscience Doctoral U.S. graduates for the 2021–22 academic year. American Geosciences Institute. Source: Data from the 2021–22 AGI Survey of Recent Geoscience Graduates
The most prominent measure by which departments define their programs’
success is based on whether their graduates secured meaningful
employment. This common and singular success metric creates a clear
connection between the graduate programs and their need to understand
and respond to the ongoing evolution of the role of geoscience in the
workforce.
Figure 3.2. Degree Topic to Employment Pathway of Geoscience Graduates, 2013-2018
Sankey diagram of the pathways from the subject of geosciences degrees awarded between 2013–2018 in the United States and the employment sector of their first post-graduation job. American Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Status of Geosciences 2018
Figure 3.3. How Do You Define Success for Your Program?
Percent of respondents
Graduate programs reported what factors they considered when evaluating the success of their program. Some of the metrics are related to the actual department and its function, and others related to activities of the graduate students themselves. American Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Survey of Graduate Program Structure
Figure 3.4. How Do You Define Success for Your Students?
Percent of programs
Graduate programs reporting what factors they consider when evaluating a student as successful. American Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Status of Geosciences 2018
Departments also reported a suite of metrics they used to evaluate
whether, or not, an individual student has been successful in their
program (Figure 3.4), including passing comprehensive exams during the
course of the degree program, and conducting research and publishing.
Research success via publishing in peer-reviewed journals during their
studies or shortly after graduating was mentioned more frequently by
doctorate-granting departments as a success metric.
Interestingly, although degree completion was important, it was not the
most common success factor mentioned by departments. Instead, it was
whether the student had gained meaningful employment. In-program
assessments were the second most common factor, likely reflecting that
such assessments, like comprehensive exams, are one of the few common
factors across all students in a graduate programs, as well as pressures
from accreditors and institutions to identify some suite of uniform,
in-program assessment measures.
Figure 3.5: Skills that Departments Expect Graduates to have Expert Proficiency by Graduation
Percent of respondents
Graduate programs have certain expectations of skills their graduates will have developed by the end of their program. Variance in those expectations are seen both by degree level and whether or not a program is cohorted. American Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Survey on Graduate Program Structure
With meaningful employment of graduates central to ideas of success of
graduate programs and their students, ensuring the programs are
well-grounded in the spectrum of ways geoscience expertise is used in
society is important. Understanding the current dynamics of
geoscience-related workforce needs can provide graduate programs with a
roadmap.
Expectations for Graduate Degree Recipients
Both doctorate-granting and terminal master’s departments value critical
thinking/problem-solving skills, research skills, communicating research
to scientists, and data analysis and statistical analysis as the top
skills expected from their graduates (Figure 3.5). It is worth noting
that computer programming is not widely emphasized as a required skill
for doctorates and non-cohort master’s, despite data analysis and
statistical analysis being among the top five where computer programming
skills may be inferred.
Skills that are not heavily emphasized include communicating research to
non-scientists, ethical conduct/training in terminal master’s programs,
formal teaching instruction for non-cohort doctorates and master’s,
leadership development, database use and management, and technical
writing skills. As the workforce is moving towards data, automation, and
greater interaction with non-scientific communities, the lack of
emphasis on these skills is a cause for concern. The impact of these
shortcomings is also reflected in recent AGI surveys where early career
geoscientists name data management and other data-related skills (Figure
3.6), writing, and business issues as key skills they wish they had
focused on in during their education along with field and lab skills.
Figure 3.6: Skills and/or Knowledge Deficiencies Identified by Recent Graduates
Percent of recent employed graduates
The percentage of recent graduates reporting on specific skills they have needed in their employment and wish they had learned during their formal education. American Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Study on the Impacts of COVID-19 on the Geoscience Enterprise
Figure 3.7: Quantitative Skills by Degree Level, 2021–2022
Percent of graduates by degree level
The percent of U.S. geoscience graduates by degree level who have taken a course in specific quantitative topics. Ameircan Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Survey on Recent Geoscience Graduates, 2021-22
Figure 3.8: Research Methods Used by Degree Level, 2021–2022
Percent of graduates by degree level
The percent of recent graduates who report using specific research methods during their graduate program. American Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Survey of Recent Geoscience Graduates, 2021-22
With the increased need for quantitative and computational skills
expected by employers (see Section 4: Skills Framework), it is
interesting to note which skills geoscience students have obtained, and
how much they are used in conducting research (Figures 3.7, 3.8). In
general, doctoral graduate students have the most quantitative,
computational and programing skills and experience. Although about 70%
of graduate students have had statistics, only 40% or fewer have had
spatial statistics which is important for the geosciences.
Student Development
All graduate programs report providing a range of specific student
development activities, from core courses and seminars to explicit
writing and quantitative skills courses. All modes of student
development are available in at least half of graduate programs, with
doctoral programs more likely to have seminar-related activities and
terminal master’s programs more likely to have common core courses and
enhanced writing courses. Although almost all doctorate granting
departments offer seminars, 65% require attendance at these events. For
both doctoral and terminal master’s programs, 80% of programs encourage
students to engage with external development activities such as
attending conferences and short courses. Diversity programs and events
are more prevalent in doctorate granting departments than in terminal
master’s programs[^1].
Additionally, for all program levels in doctoral departments, a number
of co-curricular experiences were identified as being pursued by current
students:
- Presentations at local and national conferences (76%)
- Internships (63%)
- Outreach activities at local K–12 schools (47%)
- Giving public talks and lectures (30%)
- Active with student clubs and organizations (27%)
- Engaging with science fairs (20%)
- Traveling to professional meetings (17%)
- Community service (16%)
- Participation in field trips (14%)
- Pro bono work for local non-profits (11%)
Geoscientists in the Workforce
Since 2015 geoscience employment in different sectors has changed
radically for master’s graduates and significantly for about half of the
doctoral graduates (Figure 3.9a,b). Prior to around 2017, the majority
of new master’s graduates were employed in the oil and gas sector, with
a peak of 67% in the mid-2010’s dropping to 4% in 2022. Growth
employment areas since 2017 have been in state government, mining, and
other unspecified areas; federal government employment increased after
2015 but has gradually declined since 2017. For doctoral graduates,
employment in academia has stayed at about 50% since 2017 with a small
decline. The largest increases for doctoral graduates since then have
been in federal and state government and professional services (Figure
3.9b).
Current structural changes in the domestic labor market and rapid
technological advances are driving disruptive change within all science
and engineering fields. As the United States emerges from the pandemic,
the labor market has changed, with current labor shortages recognized as
structural and expected to persist into the future, (Abraham and
Rendell, 2023). For technical fields, accelerating retirements are
creating a skills mismatch between supply and market needs, with the
labor participation rate of workers 65 and older declining 10.6% between
the start of the pandemic and January 2023, according to the U.S.
Department of Labor. (U.S. Bureau of Labor, 2023)
Part of this mismatch lies in the issue of replacing experienced workers
with new entrants, which has been especially complicated in that the
pandemic has impeded the usual knowledge transfer and mentoring
experiences for new workers. Additionally, the reported skills of new
graduates are not aligned with market demands, as technology and the
problems being addressed are changing rapidly. Industry is attuned to
pivoting quickly, but academic programs traditionally change much more
slowly, resulting in part of this observed gap. A response to this
critical skills gap by academia is needed, but, even so, there will
still be a time lag before current and incoming students with these
skills graduate.
The market itself adjusts rapidly to disequilibrium, and as a result of
these people- and skills-supply gaps, jobs are being re-envisioned and
workers are expected to bring substantially increased productivity to
accommodate fewer colleagues sharing the burden.
While technology is helping to fill some of the labor gap, it has also
disrupted traditional roles for geoscience graduates at several degree
levels. A sharp shortage of people for technician and similar
entry-level positions has created a strong employment draw on the
bachelor’s degree population, while the desperate need for highly
skilled geoscientists in analytic and professional positions is driving
a substantial increase in the expected skill level of new hires as they
replace experienced workers. The labor market has changed faster than
academic programs can adapt, and at all levels there are both a shortage
of appropriately skilled individuals for available positions and a
shortage of opportunities for graduates with comparatively traditional
capabilities.
Traditionally, bachelor’s level geoscience graduates who do not pursue
advanced degrees have entered the professional services or state/local
government employment sectors. Those with a master’s degree, which is
historically considered the default employment degree in Earth and
atmospheric science, have tended to enter resource companies,
professional services, or government (Figure 3.9a). Doctoral graduates
have largely sought opportunities in federal research or academia
(Figure 3.9b). This distribution of sectoral destinations is likely to
experience sudden and frequent shifts in response to changing market
needs. For example, for the graduating class of 2020–21, master’s
students saw a doubling in hiring by state governments driven by healthy
budgets, and a tripling of hiring in the mining sector driven by demand
to support the transition to electrification and sustainable energy
(Figure 3.9a). Yet in 2021–22, state government hiring returned to
normal levels, having effectively filled their structural demands, and
hiring in mining dropped to only double their long-term hiring trend, as
they reap the benefits of their prior aggressive hiring. These dynamic
changes necessitate that graduate programs focus less on specific
employment destinations but rather on fully developing with their
students the portfolio of employer-sought skills, and nurturing the
necessary creativity and intellectual flexibility to help today’s
students navigate a rapidly changing labor market. Students in
geoscience sub-disciplines have a diversity of employment options
(Figure 3.2).
Figure 3.9a: Employment Sector of Master’s Graduates, 2013–2021
Percent of employed graduates
The employment destination of master's geoscience graduates in the U.S. continues to change as the dominance of the oil and gas industry wanes. American Geosciences Institute. Source: Report on the Survey of Recent Geoscience Graduates 2021
Interestingly, another shift is occurring at the doctoral level
concerning graduates’ career paths (Figure 3.9b). Traditionally, most
geoscience doctoral recipients immediately enter academia, postdoctoral
research, or government research, with fewer joining the resources
industry. However, starting in 2017, there has been an increase in
doctoral recipients seeking and securing positions in the professional
services. This sector had been reluctant to hire doctoral graduates due
to concerns that these individuals might be overqualified, be
under-stimulated, and eventually return to academia to pursue research
careers. However, the need for higher-skill individuals has pushed more
professional services firms to actively recruit at the doctoral level
(Keane et al., 2022).
The change may also reflect an evolution of the role and view of the
doctoral degree in the geosciences. Employers are seeking doctoral
recipients as viable employees because they often graduate with a
stronger technical skill base in using data and in data analytics than
master’s graduates. As seen in surveys of geoscience graduates by the
American Geosciences Institute over the last several years, the skills
differential between a bachelor’s and master’s has become narrower while
the skills differential between a doctorate and a master’s has grown
substantially. Additionally, with increases in automation, more and more
work in the geosciences is focused on higher level problem-solving and
the shepherding of advanced technical and analytic techniques for which
many of the doctoral graduates have exposure and experience.
However, these changes may not be entirely driven by the relative
advanced skillfulness of doctoral graduates, but also by external
pressures, which include the willingness of private sector employers to
hire doctoral recipients given the lack of available and qualified
bachelor’s or master’s recipients, as well as a decline in the interest
of doctoral recipients in pursuing academic careers because of the
disruption and uncertainty within the academic sector, both related to
the pandemic and to more recent pressures driven by the decline in
college enrollments and the political pressures being applied to faculty
and universities (Keane et al., 2022).
Figure 3.9b: Employment Sector of Doctoral Graduates, 2013–2021
Percent of employed graduates
Doctoral employment has seen recent increases in professional services, but higher education remains the single largest destination of new doctoral recipients in the United States. American Geosciences Institute. Source: Report on the Survey of Recent Geoscience Graduates 2021
Culture of Hiring and Employing Geoscientists
At the 2018 Geoscience workshop and the two 2022 combined academic and
employer workshops, and from other survey responses of employers during
this initiative, much discussion centered on hiring practices for
different employer segments and sizes. A brief synopsis is given below.
In hiring, the relative weighting of specific skills depends on the job
opportunity, the sector of geosciences, and the type of employer. The
level of required competencies is important, but hiring often comes down
to the very specific position being filled at the moment. In some cases,
master’s level skills are sufficient, and a doctorate is more than
required. In choosing between a master’s or doctoral level applicant, an
important consideration is often which applicant’s background is more
appropriate for the position. Another is whether a doctoral graduate’s
focus area is overly specific and thus not as transferable as that of a
master’s student. Hiring at the master’s level tends to be more
holistic, and the specific topic of the master’s research is less
important. Doctoral hiring, by contrast, is driven more by technical
expertise. Current hiring methodologies, and the need for specific
extant skills and competencies, do not favor generalists. Hiring is
frequently done by non-geoscientists, and especially with larger
employers, algorithms may be used in initial screenings. In these cases,
the use of well-selected keywords to describe one’s expertise and skills
is essential, as is addressing the specifically identified
qualifications for the position.
Many employers also consider the long-term career potential of
candidates. Is the employer more interested in someone who is solution
oriented, technically capable and can carry out specific tasks, or
someone who is integrative, thinks critically and has the potential for
leadership and strategic vision? The depth and range of experience is
generally higher with a doctoral graduate than a master’s graduate, and
that deeper experience level allows for earlier transitions to
higher-level positions. As such, the doctorate brings potential for more
rapid professional advancement. Even if the job advertisement requires a
doctorate, other aspects of the position may result in the master’s
applicant being hired because they tick more boxes, especially if the
position is highly skill focused. Some employers advertise for a set of
skills, others for degree level, but documented experience can trump
both.
The participating organizations noted that there were differences
between large and small employers, even within the same field. Larger
organizations can afford to hire graduates with more specific skills and
research experience, while smaller ones need employees with broader
talents who can make an impact immediately across several
responsibilities. Major large industries/corporations and academia can
economically afford to hire doctoral graduates to think critically,
creatively, and innovatively. For smaller and less capitalized
organizations, this is often not an option, as every minute is money.
That said, an increasing number of small firms have a single
geoscientist, and doctoral graduates with good workforce skill sets are
generally preferred in such positions.
State agencies who hire master’s and bachelor’s graduates are generally
looking for more generalist research training with better “skills”, and
for people who can successfully work in a “political position.” As such,
students seeking such positions need networking and team skills, and the
ability to communicate with land-owners and other invested parties.
National labs hire both master’s and doctoral graduates. They expect
incoming doctorates to have more research depth, but these individuals
won’t last if they can’t work in teams, network, or bring in their own
projects. At the master’s level they are expected to have the
appropriate research skills to do the work they are assigned but are not
expected to bring in new projects or funding. National labs need to be
able to respond to funding opportunities across a spectrum of domains
and thus require more breadth than is required in academia. Specific
skills needed include baseline competencies in laboratory skills
(especially safety), being able to work collaboratively and in a
self-guided way, people skills (e. g. being personable), time
management, and possessing a “growth mindset.”
Science divisions in federal agencies (e.g., NASA, NOAA, USGS) generally
only hire doctorates, while other divisions hire people with other
degree levels. Doctoral graduates are directly recruited for projects,
and the skillset and content understanding are more critical than the
actual degree. Even in federal agencies, however, doctoral-level science
division employees are expected to generate their own funding as PIs
within 3 years, which is why they prioritize doctoral applicants with
leadership potential. NASA and NOAA attrition rates are very low (2%)
compared to industry (10–12%).
Figure 3.10: Terminal Degree of Working Geoscientists in the United States, 2017
Most working geoscientists in the U.S. have either a bachelor's or master's degree in the geosciences, but many also have non-geoscience terminal degrees. American Geosciences Institute. Source: Status of the Geosciences, 2018
Figure 3.11: Monthly Geoscience Employment in the United States
Geoscience employment can fluctuate monthly based on primary activity of workers, seasonality of employment and overall economic conditions. As seen, geoscience faculty represented as “Geoscience postsecondary teachers” is consistently less than 10% of the total U.S. geoscience workforce, even though it is relatively stable in size. American Geosciences Institute. Source: US Bureau of Labor
In professional services, employers also look for management skills,
self-sufficiency, and non-technical skills (e.g., empathy, awareness,
emotional intelligence, self-reflection). Proficiency is expected, but
some of the necessary technical skills can be learned on the job.
Doctoral students applying for most faculty positions are expected to
articulate their short- and long-term plans for research, and their
philosophies on teaching, graduate supervision, mentoring and (more
recently) diversity. Although for research-oriented faculty positions,
their research and potential for publishing and grant success are
critical, an increasing focus is now placed on other educational aspects
of the position. The skills and competencies that help ensure success in
business or industry are also valuable in the academic setting. Search
committees are interested in the applicant’s view of the department, and
in what motivated them to choose their department over others.
Non-tenure track positions for Professor of Practice or Instruction and
Lecturers have become more common in academia, and candidates need to
know what will be expected of them in such roles for success. In these
cases, prior industry experience and well-developed professional skills
may still be a positive.
The Workforce Today
The geoscience workforce in 2023, those whose work responsibilities
include using geoscience knowledge and skills, in the United States
comprises approximately 250,000 working professionals, of which 78% hold
a terminal geoscience degree (Figure 3.10). Approximately 60% hold a
graduate degree, with about 70% of those holding a terminal master’s
degree. Only 40,000 of approximately 70,000 doctoral geoscientists have
their terminal degree in the geosciences. Overall geoscience employment
over the 7 years has been relatively stable, although U.S. government
data shows some seasonality driven by reporting methodologies (Figure
3.11).
Figure 3.12: Projected Change in Geoscience Labor Demand by Sector between 2018 and 2028
Percent change from 2018 levels
Many employment sectors for geoscientists are expected to grow through 2028 in the United States, with some of specific growth constituting shifting of geoscience jobs from specific industries to professional services. American Geosciences Institute. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor
The COVID‑19 pandemic led to a temporary plateau in total employment,
helped because 88% of geoscience employers received some form of
governmental aid such as Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans (Keane,
2022). These static employment levels stayed consistent from March 2020
to January 2021. However, over the subsequent four to five months, an
estimated 100,000 geoscience workers were forced out of their jobs,
largely due to the expiration of PPP loan protections. Despite this
setback, the discipline has shown resilience as the nation began to
recover from the pandemic, with employment rapidly bouncing back to
around 250,000, indicating much of the churn was not structural but
rather pent-up job changes during the hiring/firing restrictions of the
PPP loans. One sector which has not seen recovery is the oil and gas
industry, where total employment has decreased.
Specific Patterns of Selected Sectors
Though geoscientists work across almost all sectors of the economy,
several sectors employ large numbers of geoscientists and help define
the general destinations for new graduates. A major consideration is
that individuals are not only less likely to work for a single employer
for their entire career, they are also not likely to work in the same
employment sector throughout their career. The skills and knowledge of
well-educated geoscientists are highly transferable and, for agile
workers, the ability to move across employment sectors is enhanced.
Given the historic economic cycles that have plagued the geosciences,
the nimbler our professionals are, the healthier the profession will
remain. Building on core competencies and developing creative,
innovative individuals who can continue to learn will lead to a future
of resilient geoscientists.
The recent shifts in employment patterns underscore a continuing trend,
where more than 90% of working geoscientists are employed outside
academia (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023). When analyzing future
workforce needs by industry, as projected by the US Bureau of Labor
Statistics, sectors like professional services and finance are expected
to expand significantly, beyond expected economic growth (Figure 3.12).
Meanwhile, sectors like government and education are likely to see the
total number of jobs remain steady, effectively shrinking relative to
the overall economy. Additionally, the projection shows declines in
employment by primary employers in the resource industries (e.g.,
mining, oil and gas) by 2028, but what this reflects is the shift of
geoscience work to professional services companies (Figure 3.12).
Figure 3.13: How Projected Labor Demand is Met
Labor demand projections are based on expected economic activity and how much of that work an average person in that field can do in a year. To met that demand, you can have specialists, substitution by non-specialists, or innovation that improve the efficiency of workers. If the sum of those does not reach the projected demand, then total growth will be lower than expected. Christopher Keane. American Geosciences Institute
An AGI 2021 survey of geoscience employers provides further insight into
hiring and the wide net with which employers are seeking talent:
approximately 72% of employers were hiring geoscientists at the
bachelor’s level, around 73% at the Master’s level, and 50% at the
doctoral level (Keane et al., 2022).
Professional Services
Traditionally, the geosciences have recognized the environmental and
engineering consulting sector as a distinct and highly defined
community. Through increasingly complex problems being addressed by
these companies, industry consolidation, and changes in other sectors,
this field has broadened and grown into one of professional service
providers. Many of the consulting companies continue to provide their
traditional services related to engineering and environmental issues,
but others, including new entrants, are providing geoscience expertise
to focus on highly defined but diverse problems brought by clients in
all parts of the geosciences, including the Earth, Ocean, and
Atmospheric Sciences.
This sector has particularly benefited from strategic shifts in the
energy sector, where much geoscience work has been outsourced to these
consulting firms. A portion of the growth in this sector is actual
reallocation of positions that historically would have been in the
energy sector but are now in these service companies, even though the
work is the same. Thus this has driven a diversification of capabilities
in the professional services sector, but also brought strong overall
growth, with as of 2022, 42% (U.S. Bureau of Labor, 2023) of all
geoscientists working in this sector.
Additionally, an increasing number of professional service companies are
forming around developing advanced technologies with geoscience
applications, from advanced data acquisition to machine learning methods
in atmospheric science to lateral transfer of science across domains,
such as the frontiers needing both earth and ocean sciences in deep-sea
mining. Many of these ventures work closely with the highly capitalized
industry players. But increasingly, the definition of domain scope
between the science, technology, and entrepreneurial innovation is
becoming less defined.
Based on AGI’s Survey of Recent Geoscience Graduates, during 2020–21
there was a notable shift in the hiring patterns within the professional
services sector (16% of all doctorates). This sector, which
traditionally favored hiring bachelor’s and master’s degree graduates,
witnessed a decline in its hiring at that level, possibly due to being
outcompeted by aggressive hiring by the federal and state governments
looking to replace retiring geotechnical staff. With the combined
external competition at earlier educational levels and an increased need
for high-skill labor, professional services firms have started to hire
more at the doctoral level. Though the shrinking doctoral graduate pool
in 2021–22 lessened hiring of doctorates into the sector, hiring at the
master’s level rebounded to consume nearly 33% of new graduates.
Raw Materials
We have observed a significant increase in graduate-level hiring within
the broader raw materials sector, including the mining industry and
state governments, particularly seeking those with master’s degrees. The
mining industry’s growth can be attributed to increased economic
activity in the raw materials sector as the economy works through its
“energy transition” and ventures into new operational areas such as
mining in extreme environments and activity in other parts of the
material cycle such as recycling and waste recovery. Like the energy
sector, the raw materials sector includes many professional services
companies that are working on mineral and materials challenges, sometime
in collaboration with mining companies and sometimes independently in
different parts of the material cycle. Though the outlook for labor
demand in the raw materials sector remains bullish, all resource sectors
are highly vulnerable to cyclicity. Transferrable skills remain
important, and with the addition of several sought-after skills in the
raw materials sector, such as drone licensing and core professional
skills to support social license efforts, these new mining geoscience
professionals should be able to move between sectors more freely than
prior generations.
Government
Large scale retirements at the federal and state levels, coupled with
healthy budgets from pandemic stimulus funding, has led to an episode of
accelerated hiring. Most recent hiring at the federal level has been at
the bachelor’s level to fill in geotechnical positions. But we see
hiring of master’s recipients at the state level, replacing recent
retirements of more senior scientists. However, with the 2021–22
graduate employment data, we have seen both sectors moderate their
hiring, potentially because they have satiated their immediate demands
and will be returning to long-term replacement hires. The Department of
Labor does not expect any absolute growth in government positions and
with, as of 2023, looming budget challenges, this sector will likely not
be returning to significant hiring in the foreseeable future (Figure
3.12).
Energy
The energy sector has become a more complicated situation relative to
the geosciences. With the movement from a fossil fuel-driven economy
towards a materials-driven economy, many traditional oil and gas jobs in
the geosciences have disappeared. But complicating this dynamic are new
energy positions such as work on geothermal, wind and solar energy,
carbon capture and even geoscience applications related to batteries and
the material cycles for batteries. These new kinds of positions confirm
that geoscience expertise is central to the energy sector, but the
specifics and necessary skills and competencies are changing rapidly.
Between 2013 and 2022 hiring of master’s graduates in the oil and gas
industry decreased from 72% to 4% (Figure 3.9a). Although the primary
hiring may no longer be in the formal petroleum sector, there continue
to be diverse employment opportunities for geoscience-related positions
across energy applications.
One interesting outgrowth, especially for those coming from the energy
sector, has been consistent hiring in “non-traditional” geoscience
sectors. For example, from AGI’s Survey of Recent Geoscience Graduates,
the health care industry has consistently been hiring geophysics
master’s graduates, mostly in the medical imaging industry. Many of the
skills and knowledge developed in geoscience graduate programs are
highly transferable.
The Forces of Workforce Change
Projections for future geoscience labor demand are built on two key
assumptions: the growth rate of the overall economy, and that per-person
productivity remains approximately the same. According to the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the geosciences, labor demand is
expected to grow slightly faster than the economy. Whether there will be
supply to meet that demand both in terms of quantity and capabilities is
a key question.
From an economic development perspective, a certain amount of labor is
required to produce a given amount of work. Failure to reach that level
of work results in unrealized economic activity. Meeting that amount of
work in the geosciences, however, can happen both with actual
geoscientists and professionals who can substitute in some of those
applications, such as engineers or actuaries. But perhaps more
importantly, innovation improves professional efficiency and can thus
allow a single person to accomplish more work, reducing labor supply
gaps (Figure 3.13). Innovation is a major factor in meeting labor needs,
changing the traditional productivity curve of geoscientists from a 3%
per year rate (Keane and Milling, 2003) to something as yet
unquantified, but much higher.
Much of the innovation today is driven through data analytics and
machine learning applications being applied to scientific and industrial
activities. This shift to a data-centric workflow is profoundly
impacting the geosciences and will define the future of work within the
discipline. Conversely, these data-centric skills, as well as the
increase in AI, are allowing geoscience graduates to obtain
non-geoscience positions in other highly technical fields (e.g.,
information technology). It is interesting to note that of those with a
terminal geoscience master’s degree, 49.1% are working as a geoscientist
and 76.3% in a science occupation. For geoscience doctoral graduates,
69.7% are working as a geoscientist and 87.9% are working in a science
occupation (Keane et al., 2022). Not all of these in science occupations
are in data or computationally intensive positions, however, the skills
and competencies developed by geoscientists in graduate school are
clearly applicable to other scientific endeavors.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence are not directly replacing
the intellectual endeavor of geoscientists but are rather being applied
to tackle the problem that scientists spend ≈80% of their working time
identifying, cleaning, and preparing data and only ≈20% of their time
analyzing data and generating useful insights and syntheses (Fell,
2018). Several industry initiatives have pursued using machine learning
applications to reduce this 80/20 ratio so that geoscientists can spend
substantially more time focused on doing science rather than on data
manipulation. These efforts have yielded clear successes, both in
building efficiencies as well as in automating large parts of the
geologic analytic workflow, such as logging, surveying and
interpretation (Fell, 2018) and have supplanted many middle-skill
geoscience positions doing routine geologic evaluation in the field and
in the lab. Today these processes are advanced enough to handle the
classification of most routine geoscience information and are also
sensitive enough to flag areas that deviate from expected norms which
usually indicate points of geologic interest to be analyzed and
evaluated by a geoscientist.
Several companies that have adopted these processes insist that they
don’t intend to replace geoscientists in the workforce. Instead, they
aim to create an “augmented geoscientist” (Fell, 2018), following onto
the ideas of Kobelius (2017) to use machine learning in computer
programming as a strategy to better utilize the intellectual strengths
of humans through the reduction of rote activity. The goal is to enable
professional geoscientists to spend considerably more time addressing
geoscience problems, using their creativity and scientific abilities to
tackle the increasingly intricate issues that society encounters. This
idea of “augmented” professionals is also growing rapidly in other
fields. The rapid advances in AI applications are making this
mainstream, through computing tools like GitHub Co-Pilot.
Figure 3.14a: Geoscience Enrollment in the United States, 1955–2022
Students enrolled
Historical timeline of enrollment by U.S. geoscience programs since 1955. American Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Directory of Geoscience Departments Survey 2023
Figure 3.14b: Geoscience Degrees Awarded in the United States, 1973–2022
Students enrolled
Historical timeline of degrees awarded by U.S. geoscience programs since 1973. American Geosciences Institute. Source: AGI Directory of Geoscience Departments Survey 2023
Another important change in the geoscience profession is the transition
of the roles of geoscientists to becoming part of “solution teams”. In
the last fifty years geoscience work has transitioned from
domain-specific specialists working independently to interdisciplinary
collaborations in academia, and more recently to the formation in
various industries of integrated teams of interdisciplinary
professionals. The current trajectory is towards cultivating integrated
professionals/individuals who possess a broad understanding of the
geosciences and related areas, including engineering and business, while
maintaining specific strengths in their technical area. They collaborate
with other professionals who have complementary skills, enabling all
team members to contribute to every facet of the problem. Numerous large
geoscience employers have reported trying to move towards this new team
model.
These changes are disrupting traditional models for labor in the
geosciences, eliminating many mid-skill roles such as seismic and
stratigraphic interpreters. The focus has shifted to individuals who are
field and technical-oriented, especially in data collection and
production, and to those focused on analysis and synthesis. This shift
is leading to a new geoscience labor structure where geoscience
expertise is applied to two specific aspects of the discipline (Keane
and Wilson, 2018).
We are also witnessing systemic changes in the role of geoscientists
within the economy. Traditionally, many geoscientists were employed in
the resource sector, including oil, gas, minerals, and water, working
for large companies that developed and managed these resources (Figure
3.9a). Today, the challenges are less about traditional resource
discovery and more about the production, development, alternative
sourcing, and stewardship of these resources with their hosting
communities and the environment, leading to the application of
geoscience expertise downstream.
Another expanding trend is the solitary geoscientist in the private
sector. With the growth in environmental regulations and increased
compliance expectations, coupled with market pressure for adherence to
ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals, a growing number of
corporations, particularly in manufacturing, finance, and
infrastructure, are hiring individual geoscientists. These professionals
are tasked with addressing a wide range of questions and fulfilling
reporting requirements to meet these goals for their employers.
Dynamics of the Labor Supply Chain
For the first time in nearly four decades, enrollment in geoscience
graduate programs in the United States has decreased (Figure 3.14a).
This reduction is partially due to the impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic,
but signs of a weakening in graduate school enrollments were evident as
early as 2011. Since 1982, the geosciences had maintained a steady
graduate enrollment around 10,000 students, which largely represented
the functional carrying capacity of geoscience graduate education
programs in the United States.
The decline in enrollment since 2018 has been significant, with only
around 5,000 students currently enrolled in geoscience graduate programs
as of 2022. According to department leadership in the AGI survey for the
Directory of Geoscience Departments, distinguishing between master’s and
doctoral enrollments is challenging, as many students indicate intent to
pursue the doctorate, as that improves the access to funding, but then
may leave with a master’s degree. The same survey shows that degrees
awarded for master’s and doctorates have been relatively steady for
decades but decreased during the pandemic (Figure 3.14b). Between
2019–2022, master’s degrees awarded dropped by 32.3% and doctoral
degrees by 48.4%. The post-pandemic rebound in undergraduate enrollment
and increase in degrees awarded (Figure 3.14a,b) may result in more
graduate enrollment and degrees.
From the surveys of AGI’s Impacts of COVID‑19 on the Geoscience
Enterprise project (NSF
#2029570)(https://covid19.americangeosciences.org), another trend that
has emerged since the start of the pandemic is that many geoscience
programs have curtailed their intake of new graduate students as they
grapple with how to successfully guide their current students, who may
have faced delays due to the pandemic, to graduation. An ongoing steady
output of degrees in an environment of decreasing enrollments (Figure
3.14a) suggests that the issue of delayed completion has been a major
factor. Moreover, increasing numbers of programs are either choosing not
to admit new students or are reducing the number of available spots due
to financial uncertainties within the school and lower undergraduate
enrollments, which has led to fewer available teaching assistantships.
Looking to the future, 10 years from now, if enrollments continue to
decline and the need for geoscientists increases as predicted, what can
be done to avoid a large employment gap — which is to say, how do we
attract more students to the geosciences? Previously, geoscience
employment largely followed oil and gas trends, but by 2005 it had
decoupled. Geoscience employment is now being driven by new fields: our
participating employers included those from the reinsurance industry,
from tech companies, from remote sensing, construction firms, and a wide
range of other earth, atmosphere, and ocean science employers. To
effectively compete for graduate students, geoscience departments need
to highlight how the geosciences allow students to participate in
solutions to global and societal challenges. Jobs requiring geoscience
skills won’t go unfilled, but who gets hired into those jobs may not
have the competencies that are needed for them, because they don’t have
geoscience degrees. We need to make sure the future workforce has
geoscience expertise.