Section 5. Organizational Framework for Graduate Programs

Integration of Skills and Competencies into Graduate Geoscience Education

At the 2019 Summit of departmental heads, chairs and graduate program directors, there was an overall acceptance of the need to improve graduate geoscience education. After reviewing the recommendations of the 2018 Geoscience Employers Workshop, they concluded they needed to consider how to integrate the identified skills into graduate programs without losing their strong emphasis on research. Additionally, they thought that training and/or practice of many of the non-core skills could become part of programmatic cultures. The consensus was that each graduate program should identify their core learning outcomes for master’s and doctoral students in terms of technical and non-technical skills and knowledge. These learning outcomes and their importance should be communicated to students early in their graduate careers, along with guidance on how to achieve them. In addition to informing graduate students where they can develop these skills, it is important for them to recognize when they have done so. For large graduate programs, individual research groups may have somewhat differing expectations, but each program should identify some overall baseline in terms of core skills and competencies.

Academic participants at the 2019 Summit identified where technical and nontechnical skills could be developed through research, coursework and co-curricular activities. These results, augmented by recommendations of participants at the 2022 combined academic and employer workshops and employers at the 2018 Employers Workshop, are presented below.

Research

The primary focus to best develop competencies was through research. Regardless of whether courses were required or what courses the program or institution offered, the one common feature among graduate programs and institutions is graduate student research. Disciplinary and technical knowledge and skills are already part of research programs. Depending on the specific research, these may include field, laboratory and/or computational skills. Many research projects today involve dealing with large datasets, requiring data analytics and data management. The 2019 participants recommended that skills related to big data, coding and scientific communication should be built into all theses and dissertations, something that had become common by 2022.

Learning how to do research is non-trivial. The geosciences lends itself towards process-based thinking, and research teaches this skill. To solve problems, it is necessary to go deep into a topic and identify high level strategic takeaways. In conducting research, students get intensive practice, develop deeper expertise in core competencies, and become proficient in a range of technical skills.

A major part of research is critical thinking and problem solving. Students need to read and evaluate the literature and learn to identify reliable data sources. They learn to distill important information quickly and accurately and when to ask for help. They are required to analyze and evaluate their data and results, and characterize, manage, and communicate uncertainty. They also learn to think on different scales for both time and space and to further develop 3D and spatial visualization. Much research today is interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary, requiring collaboration, and involves Earth systems thinking.

During the research process, students need to formulate the questions to be addressed in their research. They should be encouraged to articulate why their research is significant, and to connect their work as appropriate to societally important problems and issues. They need to seek out and identify solutions and/or answers to the questions posed by their research. Learning to articulate the impact of research outcomes and translate these into a solution or application is an ideal end result.

In a perfect world, graduate research experiences should encompass all these steps. The academic participants recognized that many students are presented with research problems to address, and often do not fully understand the impact or significance of their research. Research results frequently do not answer the originally posed research questions, and often no specific solutions or applications are identified. Concerted efforts are required to ensure that all students are involved in the complete research process.

Graduate students typically get many opportunities for written and oral communication about their research. Theses and dissertations, publications, and grant proposals all provide students opportunities to learn to communicate in writing with other scientists, and conference presentations offer practice with oral interactions, all typically within the sub-disciplinary field of the students’ research.

Graduate students should also have practice writing about scientifically complicated material for different audiences. Students can practice by writing short summaries of papers they have read or talks they have heard, aimed at a general audience. Having students write press releases for their dissertation proposals and describing the results of their research before publications can help them express the societal impact of their research to diverse audiences along with additional practice for their written communication skills. The 2022 workshop participants recommended that students be encouraged to write about their research for different kinds of information platforms (i.e., social media, blogs) as well as for varied audiences.

Participants stressed that graduate students also need opportunities to give presentations to different audiences, both at professional conferences and to non-technical audiences in more informal settings where they can articulate the big picture in layman’s terms. Having graduate students practice presenting 15-minute conference-style talks helps them learn to communicate concisely and effectively. Longer presentations to research groups, as part of department seminar activities, or to undergraduate classes also provide opportunities to practice oral communication to different audiences. More engagement of faculty and students in these activities where students develop communication skills is essential.

Graduate students also need practice giving short informal talks. It was recommended that students prepare “elevator speeches” about their research that they maintain and revise throughout their graduate career. They should be able to succinctly tell someone with little or no science background what they are doing for their research and why it is important in easily understandable language. There should be the opportunity for practice with these so students feel empowered to give them on any occasion. Another approach is for students to develop a 3-minute thesis presentation focused on presenting research succinctly to a general audience.

Many students write grant proposals to support their research (e.g., Geological Society of America — ​GSA or American Association of Petroleum Geologists — ​AAPG research grants, NSF graduate research fellowship program grants — ​GRFP; NASA and DOE fellowship grants), which requires them to develop a budget and project plan helping them learn project management and business skills. Investigating where is most appropriate to submit a proposal helps students develop an awareness of how research is funded. Additionally, they are required to explain the significance and broader impact of their research, another important skill needed in business and by academics. The 2019 participants suggested it would be valuable to incorporate a requirement for a project plan, budget, and statement of the broader research impacts in qualifying and/or comprehensive exams and thesis/dissertation proposals.

Organizational management skills can be developed as part of graduate research programs. Research or lab group meetings, and even teaching assistant meetings provide opportunities to learn how to run effective meetings. Students should all get the opportunity to set agendas, to manage meetings in terms of time, progress, and documentation, and to manage meeting discussions and keep them relevant to planned meeting topics. Those students working such groups also can learn teamwork, including people skills, conflict resolution, sensitivity to diversity, and how to integrate different ideas, methods, and approaches. Co-authoring papers further develops collaboration skills.

Aspects of project management and time management should be incorporated into dissertation and thesis research projects. Advisors should have their students outline the key project components and establish timelines for achieving specific goals, which should be reviewed and adjusted as needed during their research. Continually keeping track of short- and long-term accomplishments helps move the research toward completion, as well as providing experience with time and project management. One approach is scheduled progress reports back to advisors, doctoral committees and/or research groups. As an example, at weekly research group meetings each student can lay out what part of their semester goals they intend to accomplish in the next week and discuss outcomes from the previous week’s results.

The 2019 and 2022 participants found the idea of a time management matrix to be a useful means for helping students, and themselves, recognize how they spent their time. The practice of consciously reviewing the activities one was actually undertaking, and assessing whether these were urgent, not urgent, important or not important, and then assaying how much was being spent on each category of activities/quadrant of the matrix was seen as a potentially valuable organizational tool for students as they become more self-directing in their research efforts. Also suggested was use of a GANTT chart that compares the planned timeframe of specific aspects of the research with the actual timeframe of completed work.

All graduate students should learn ethical research behavior and standards of practice during their master’s or doctoral research. Those graduate students substantially supported by NSF (one month or more) are required to take Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) training offered by their institution. Advisors and committees should be intentional to make sure these issues are discussed with respect to the student’s research and about research practice in general. A thorough discussion of the concept of co-authorship, of authorship order, and of the recognition of collaborators’ contributions should occur early in the research process and be reiterated as timely and appropriate.

The 2022 workshop participants pointed out that in many research projects students develop skills that are applicable across a wide variety of future employment possibilities. Those involved in field research will likely learn about permitting and logistics, including budgeting, lodging, transportation, international regulations and requirements, and buying supplies and backup materials. Many students learn about experimental design, how to develop new techniques, and get experience running and repairing specialized equipment. Some get valuable experience in programming, software development, AI and machine learning. Doctoral students, and even some master’s students, need to develop an understanding of how science is funded, about different types of research grants and other funding opportunities, and that to gain funding it is critical to demonstrate why your research is important. All of these prepare students for a successful career.

Another important aspect of conducting research is professional development, as it can foster personal growth, including the development of flexibility and adaptability. In research, students learn how to deal with failure and setbacks, how to normalize disappointment, how to handle delays and like challenges, how to accept feedback, and, importantly, how to persevere to completion. The peer review experience gives them the opportunity to receive and address constructive criticism and how to use such feedback effectively, which helps them build professional resilience. Opportunities to review papers for publications gives them practice and insight into the review process.

Coursework

Graduate courses usually teach students core disciplinary knowledge that they either did not learn as an undergraduate or at a higher level. Such courses can also provide the opportunity to develop specific technical skills and are commonly directly applicable to their research. However, students should also consider (and their faculty should support and even encourage) taking courses that might be useful in a future career. Participants at the 2019 Summit agreed that programs should undertake deliberate planning and coordination of graduate coursework to include key competencies, including data analytics and management, coding, statistics, science communication and project management.

Employers felt that students having completed high-level graduate coursework was at times as important as research. They want to see evidence of students pushing themselves, trying new or different classes to learn new skills, and integrating what they learned in these into their research, using their own data in course-related activities and projects. The intersection of research and course-developed competencies underpins the transition to intentional learning, which generally comes with the completion of a doctoral program; for master’s-level students it comes with time and professional experience.

Courses can be an effective way to develop competencies in problem solving. Case studies, either as parts of courses, or through a standalone problem-solving course, can provide additional opportunities at problem solving, and thus support what occurs through the students’ research. Students should both identify the problems as well as the questions to be asked and be expected to find solutions and applications for the results. The shorter timeframes of course-related problem solving can be used to direct students toward seeking sufficient solutions rather than a complete solution, helping them recognize this difference which will be valuable in their future employment. They may get experience in analyzing and synthesizing data, characterizing, and communicating the uncertainty of their results, and making decisions. Requiring a short, concise written report and/or oral presentation gives them practice in communicating effectively. If the case study comprises an entire course, they can also be expected to write a proposal, set project boundaries, identify deliverables, define a budget, and manage the project. Commonly, industry partners or retirees will collaborate in such courses, either as advisors and instructors or as “judges” or mock clients to choose winning teams. Alternatively, co-op programs, where students alternate semesters (or months) in the classroom with working in industry, provide similar experiential learning.

Service-learning courses, as suggested by the 2019 Summit participants, require students to identify problems, find sufficient solutions, work as teams in diverse communities and communicate effectively with non-specialists. These courses allow students to practice professional behavior and help demonstrate the importance of broader impacts.

Courses are also a way to integrate teamwork into graduate education and can be especially important for students whose graduate research is not as part of a research team. Group projects that put together students with different backgrounds and skills help teach the importance of diversity. The teams need instruction on the expectations for team interactions. To be successful, teamwork skills require more than just group work or collaborations. Students need to work as a team, not divide the work up with each student only doing what they do best and having a single student merge the results. Using project management approaches, such as Agile methodology, for this process will expose students to a common business practice where a project is broken into phases, with teams following a continuous cycle of planning, executing, evaluation and improvement. This process will require them to manage conflict and use their diversity to achieve a better result. Teamwork-focused activities also help students with both project and time management skills.

Written and oral communication skills can be developed in all courses, as well as in communications-centric courses. To be successful, students need intentional instruction in effective communication, and must be given significant, formative feedback and opportunities for revision. Feedback from both the instructor and from peers is valuable, and peer review of writing often works better than faculty editing. ChatGPT and other AI can also provide feedback on written text instantaneously, which students can use to revise their work and learn writing skills. Many kinds of written documents can be incorporated into courses, including abstracts, literature-intensive term papers and one-pagers. These can explore topics unrelated to their research, or they can support what they need to do for their own research. One-pagers and abstracts require conciseness and careful organization. One-pagers can also allow students to practice writing for different audiences and experiment with different styles.

Coupling oral presentations in classes with required written work helps prepare students for presenting their research. With constructive feedback from their peers and instructors, they can learn how to visually display their data, interpretations, and conclusions, and how to effectively present their work concisely. Another approach is to give students the opportunity to teach, either pieces of a course, or potentially (as permitted by accreditation requirements) a full undergraduate class. Teaching experiences give students a better understanding of how to organize and convey information for a general, non-specialist audience, and how to engage them in discussions about the science, which is important for those going into academics.

Writing a proposal as part of a class project is useful in developing several important skills. Some faculty have students write an NSF-style proposal, while others emphasize shorter proposal templates, like an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship application, or the Geological Society of America research grant request. Irrespective of proposal format, the exercise has students identify a problem to solve, integrate data from the literature, and enunciate the broader societal impacts of the proposed work and its likely findings. Students are responsible for generating a budget and a project timeline, which helps develop business skills, and to discuss how they will communicate and disseminate their results. Proposal-writing experiences early in their graduate careers, related to a class or otherwise, greatly facilitates students’ writing efforts in a thesis or dissertation, and helps them develop competitive grant proposals for their own research, so also benefits their research experience.

Many entering graduate students do not have a strong quantitative background, so stand-alone courses in geostatistics, geospatial statistics, mathematics for geoscientists (e.g., applied calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra), GIS and geospatial reasoning should be offered, and faculty advisors should encourage students to take these courses even if not directly related to their thesis.

Many programs offer courses on computer programing in a variety of languages (e.g., Python, R, MatLab, etc.), and/or on data analytics and data management. These courses are sometimes taught in other departments and have become very popular within geoscience graduate programs since the Geoscience Employer Workshop in 2018. The use of, and need for, these skills has permeated geoscience research such that many geoscience courses now include working with large databases on a wide variety of topics. For students who do not explicitly need these skills to complete their research, taking such courses gives them both an awareness of, and an opportunity for, basic practice of these skills and the potential to broaden their scope of expertise in valuable ways. The 2019 participants recommended that open and easily usable databases be built for students in all fields.

Business, commercial acumen and leadership competencies can be incorporated in existing courses such as economic geology, petroleum and mining geology, environmental geology, and hydrogeology. Among the institutions represented in our events, alumni, industry, and business school collaborators frequently work with geoscience faculty in teaching such courses.

If professional licensure is a professional expectation for graduates, then coursework that addresses those requirements should be offered (e.g., Practice of Geology Exam - PG, Certified Professional in Erosion and Sediment Control — ​CPESC, etc.). Some departments also offer industry-specific coursework (e.g., Applied Environmental Policy, 40-Hour HAZWOPER, Sustainability/Circular Economy/Climate Change, etc.) or courses on reading and understanding local/state/federal regulations, rules, statutes and policies. The latter may also include practice in writing guidance documents to implement rules and scopes of work. Some departments are teaching a course about introduction to professional geoscience — ​the basics of business, licensing, budgeting etc., co-taught by faculty and local employers.

Participants in the 2022 workshops also recommended that departments require a course or experience for all first-year graduate students that introduces them to research and graduate school. Such courses develop cohorts, build community, and promote cross disciplinary networking. Discussing management skills early in the graduate program, such as communication, time and project management, coping strategies, and prioritization, helps with successful and timely completion of degrees. These first-year courses are also ideal places to discuss ethical responsibilities, authorship, plagiarism, DEI issues, and appropriate professional behavior. Another option is to hold one-hour workshops on non-technical skills; doing so will also help emphasize the importance of these skills. Programs that have such onboarding experiences, or courses, for new graduate students should consider having appropriate, experienced faculty members or external speakers discuss many of these topics, and invite other faculty to attend.

Alternatively, other courses should include direct discussion of professional ethics, standards of practice, and codes of conduct; it is important to ensure that students are exposed to these principles. Discussion of the value of diversity and need for equity, inclusion (DEI) and justice in science and the scientific workforce are also important. Students also should receive training related to problematic interpersonal behaviors, including implicit bias, microaggressions, and other kinds of behaviors that are unacceptable in the workplace.

Graduate programs can differ widely in their course requirements, depending on whether the focus is on master’s or doctoral students, the kinds of backgrounds in their incoming student cohorts, and the employment outcomes of their students (i.e., is the program primarily a conduit to a specific employment sector). Courses are an important avenue for developing specific competencies, and faculty may find integrating skills development into existing courses to be easier than creating new courses.

Co-curricular Activities

The 2019 academic and 2022 academic and employer participants explored many co-curricular activities that can help graduate students develop non-core research skills and recommended graduate programs encourage student participation. Various departmental activities, including clubs and outreach programs, professional organization activities, including local chapters of national organizations; internships, and other forms of public engagement provide opportunities for practice and growth of non-technical skills, such as leadership, management skills, and potentially entrepreneurship. Outreach efforts to high school or middle school students can provide practice in communicating science to non-specialists in a less stressful environment, and these experiences can encourage younger students to get involved with the geosciences. Optional field experiences, international experiences, and internships can also offer opportunities for personal growth.

These activities help develop interpersonal skills through working in teams with diverse groups. Such teamwork can strengthen students’ ability to work with people with different backgrounds and from different cultures and provide them with hands-on experiences with conflict resolution. Volunteering and outreach allow students to give back to the community while building character and developing professional values and ethics. Such experiences can also help students identify broader impacts of their research or field of study. Many of these activities also provide opportunities to do non-technical writing for fliers, news articles or short reports and oral communication in presentations at science cafes, museums, brown bags and even competitions.

True teamwork skills can be developed in partnership with industry, agencies, and professional societies. For example, corporations and government agencies issue challenges or contests where teams of students compete. Scientific societies also have some team-based, cross-disciplinary, longer-term projects for student groups to work on together, also in competition with other student teams (e.g., AAPG’s Imperial Barrel Award Program - IBA).

Providing a structure for interchange between graduate students who are developing business, communication, teamwork and leaderships skills, and their peers can broaden their classmates’ perspectives. This can be accomplished through students giving presentations about their experiences in informal departmental seminars and for student organizations or in research group meetings. Another professional development mechanism for growth is peer mentoring, both as the mentor and as the mentee, and through informal faculty or staff mentoring.

Other opportunities for co-curricular activities are external to the department graduate programs and/or in conjunction with external individuals or groups. Short courses, online courses and 1-credit courses can be taken to develop a specific skill (e.g., PluralSite, Kahn Academy, LinkedIn Learning, edX, etc.). Usually, these focus on a technical skill that is valuable for future employment, such as HAZMAT training, or that is needed for their research but not offered in their department, such as data analytics. Some of these topics are better delivered in a shorter and more intensive format, and virtual delivery has become easier and readily available (e.g., videos on YouTube). Also available are short courses at professional society meetings (e.g., GSA, AGU, Earth Educators Rendezvous) on specialized software, modeling, teaching, and other technical subjects.

Other non-departmental courses, such as business courses or computer programming offerings, allow students to broaden their skill set in ways that are not possible within their department. Many universities now offer certificate programs or “badging” opportunities that provide students both with experience and with official recognition of their additional skills. Dual degrees are also an option (e.g., Moran, 2021; Moran et al., 2009).

External or institutional professional development workshops, courses, and related web resources (e.g., LinkedIn, Coursera, etc.) offer different types of training for students, faculty, and other professionals. Professional development opportunities include a wide range of topics: diversity, equity, and inclusion training; managing personal behavior; mentorship training for current and future faculty; training on standards of professional practice, conflict management, time management, and entrepreneurship; scientific writing, grant writing, scientific methods, ethics, and pedagogy. Many of these are offered or sponsored by professional scientific societies (e.g., American Geophysical Union — ​AGU, GSA, AGI, American Institute of Professional Geologists — ​AIPG, American Association for the Advancement of Science — ​AAAS, etc.). The National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG) provides materials to help students pass the Fundamentals of Geology exam for those wishing to pursue professional licensure. Some academic programs require students to take this exam to become a Geologist-in-Training.

Many organizations and academic institutions offer communication courses or “presentation boot camps” both in person and online. Toastmasters International has a worldwide network of clubs that teach public speaking and leadership skills.

The National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) and other geoscience societies offer teacher training and/or teaching assistant training. Many universities have “centers for teaching excellence” that can provide similar training. The NAGT Earth Educators’ Rendezvous offers a changing menu of professional development opportunities for geoscience students with interests in an academic career. The Science Education Resource Center (SERC: https://serc.carleton.edu) provides free access to a wealth of curricular material, training, and educational opportunities online.

Other websites offer information on the breadth of career tracks available for geoscientists, skills and competencies needed by students for career success, and for students’ resources available on campus and through professional societies. AGI has developed a number of Career Compasses (https://www.americangeosciences.org/workforce/compass) for different geoscience professions that show paths for undergraduates, master’s, and doctorate students.

Preparing Geoscience Graduate Students to be Leaders, Innovators and Creators

A concern expressed by geoscience employers across all employment sectors, including academia, was an overall lack of geoscience-focused leaders, innovators and creators compared to many other science and engineering fields. Overall, geoscientists are not developing breakthrough technologies, starting or leading companies, becoming entrepreneurs or becoming leaders in public policy. Lack of leadership has long plagued the geosciences, and this has in part led to it being marginalized as a science capable of addressing societal problems and as a discipline of importance in the education of both scientists and non-scientists. Our graduate students need greater ambitions and aspirations as our field becomes increasingly involved in addressing major societal challenges.

To address this concern, participants discussed the concept of a required first-year class for all incoming graduate students aimed at helping students understand and develop leadership and entrepreneurship competencies early in their academic careers. Lectures and interactive sessions given by external entrepreneurs or faculty with appropriate experience would introduce students to these ideas. Other ways to expose students to some of these competencies are to have non-faculty conduct or take part in classes on careers and applications, or to offer applied science courses that fully integrate all aspects of solving problems in a team environment. If none of these is feasible, other departments such as business and engineering may offer such courses and students should be encouraged to take them. Many such courses are also available online.

The geosciences and its applications, by their very nature, should lead to innovative thinking. Much innovation is the result of collaboration across different disciplines or subdisciplines, and the geosciences is highly interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary. Dissertations that span more than one field or that involve collaborations with those in different fields can foster innovation. Innovation also occurs when making sense of or interpreting large datasets. Students should be encouraged to take ownership of their research and be willing to take risks and try things outside their comfort zone, where they are in control and taking responsibility. Such behavior leads to innovation and sets the stage for being an entrepreneur. Students should also be directed to write grant proposals where they must “sell their research” to potential funders, giving them practice in demonstrating why what they are proposing is innovative.

Unlike engineering, few geoscience departments maintain dedicated space for innovation and collaboration, such as a makerspace. However, many universities do. Encouraging students to get access and make use of such spaces and resources that are open across all fields helps promote cross-discipline collaborations, which would be beneficial.

Students learn from examples. Faculty should help to foster a culture of empathy and compassion, demonstrate ethical approaches, and exemplify other leadership traits, such as emotional intelligence (EQ skills) — ​self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Discussing why these traits are important with their students would be beneficial.

Once students learn what makes a good leader, they can better develop the needed interpersonal skills and can seek out leadership activities. For example, they can mentor undergraduates or less senior graduate students with different levels of support or independence. Participation in departmental activities and organizations provides experience and exposure to leaderships roles and are also good ways to build these skills. Students could have many leadership opportunities (running the seminar series, other informal opportunities) during their graduate career that they can tout those in their resumes. Teaching is also intrinsically an effective leadership opportunity.

Faculty should encourage community involvement or interactions outside their discipline (general public, stakeholders, K–12 students/teachers, their alumni institutions) as a way for students to practice working with others and experience different forms of leadership. Working with social scientists and taking solution-oriented approaches to problems also helps students develop communication skills needed to lead; they must make the science relatable and show how the project or problem and solution has importance locally or to at specific group. They must demonstrate a vision and a plan for execution, especially if they also are seeking funding for the project.

Teamwork also promotes collaboration and provides opportunities for professional growth where students must take charge as a leader and also be a follower. Developing good interpersonal skills is necessary for effective teamwork. Students will learn from experience the importance of valuing diversity and inclusive practices. They also will discover the importance of collective competency of a team - it is not necessarily best to have figured something out all by yourself, but instead to have a team effort that uses the strengths of all involved.

Individual Development Plans

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) provide a proven mechanism for developing a customized roadmap for professional training and goals. A 2005 Sigma Xi Postdoc survey of U.S. postdoctoral scholars showed that postdoctoral scholars who created a written career plan or IDP with their mentors were 23% more likely to submit papers, 30% more likely to publish first-authored papers, and 25% less likely to report that their mentor did not meet initial expectations (Davis, 2009). A consensus has emerged that IDPs are also a helpful and important exercise for graduate students.

The 2019 Summit participants embraced the use of IDPs, and by the 2022 workshops, many departments had already implemented them. AAAS offers an IDP model and roadmap (https://myidp.sciencecareers.org/) that had largely been used for postdoctoral fellows and many universities have adopted similar roadmaps (see Appendices A & B for an example). As of 2023, NSF is instituting a new requirement for substantially-funded graduate students and postdocs (one person month or more) to develop and annually update individual development plans.

Ideally, students should establish an individual development plan early in their graduate career with the help of their advisor and/or other mentors. To develop their own IDPs, students first need to be able to recognize and assess the suite of skills that they currently have. Suggested skill areas to consider include research, professional time management, and interpersonal, management and leadership skills. Next, they are asked about their career aspirations: specifically, what career pathways are of interest, what do they like to do, and what do they value in their work environment? Students should then investigate and be provided guidance as to the skills, competencies, and knowledge needed for success in different geoscience careers, the likely work environments, and what is involved in the different careers. Students and mentors should use the skills recommended by employers and academics in Section 4: Skills Framework as an overall guide to competencies that should be developed, however, the depth needed will depend on the student’s overall career goals and interests.

The IDP exercise encourages reflection on how students’ career aspirations match their skills, interests, and professional values, and help them identify those skills they need to gain or improve. Students can then set professional development goals that are specific, sensible, measurable, action-oriented, and time-bounded (i.e., doable in the time available). They should develop a concrete plan for skills development, building a network, and getting the experience they need for their chosen future career. Their mentors can help them identify measures of success. It is important for students to revisit their IDPs throughout their graduate career as their interests may change, and new opportunities or different skills may offer opportunities for different career pathways. Mentoring and guidance all through the development and execution of these IDPs is important, but care is needed to ensure that the student, not the mentor, is making the decisions.

IDPs are useful for more than developing skills for a specific career path. They can also provide students with valuable structure to advising and mentoring conversations with faculty advisors and others, to help keep students on track and to guide their progression through their degree programs to completion. Using IDPs also stresses the importance of self-reflection. Effective use of IDPs should ensure a student can express their skills, passion, wants, and needs openly in a safe environment. They are the ones who identify the skills needed, their goals, and where to find necessary resources and connections. Students should diversify their sources of professional information to better prepare themselves for careers. They should learn to develop a diverse network and develop a menu of skills that are transferable to other disciplines (e.g., communication, writing, critical thinking, data analysis, statistics). Mentors should help their students understand why they need to develop specific skills, and what courses and co-curricular activities will help. They should help students decide whether their career goals are better met with a master’s or doctoral degree. Mentors also should discuss with them what research careers are like, the breadth and depth of research-related skills that may be needed, and which aspects of conducting research help develop skills that are valuable in other careers. Some departments have active faculty who have non-academic work experience or strong contacts, and these faculty may serve as a resource for students interested in different categories of geoscience careers.

Mentoring should be a mutual activity, not one-way guidance. Faculty mentors need to listen to what the students want to become to effectively discuss workshops, coursework or other options to gain the desired skills or meet the identified needs. Students need to communicate clearly to their mentor(s) what they want to become, and what their goals are. Faculty can work to ensure that opportunities are available to students, such as internships, but likely cannot ascertain the quality of every accomplishment, product, or activity. Emphasis and control need to be in the hands of the students; they need to take ownership of their professional growth, including completion of their degrees and meeting their career goals. This effort will build students’ confidence in their accomplishments and can alleviate “imposter syndrome”. The result should be a better educated, more focused, and productive graduate student.

Although the 2019 academic participants viewed IDPs as key to providing a pathway to student success, they agreed that their implementation would require a culture change for both faculty and students. IDP strategies work only if the faculty have bought into them, supporting the process, and participating in them with the students. The new requirement by NSF will substantially increase the development of IDPs for graduate students. Faculty need to be educated on the benefits of, and on the process of developing IDPs, and both faculty and graduate programs will need access to resources that can help students with their career choices. Every graduate program will need to develop its own best practices for IDPs, starting from a generic plan that can be modified according to the student interests and needs. The IDP should provide a specific template for a student that is integrated and aligned with their programmatic requirements. Using IDPs needs to become part of the culture of a department, demonstrating to students that faculty are concerned about their professional future, and not only the completion of their research and degrees.

At the 2022 workshops, participants discussed ways to document progress in fulfilling the goals outlined in IDPs. Integrating an IDP with an e-portfolio is one way for students to track their own achievements and demonstrate progress. E-portfolios allow students to compile examples of their research, curricular and co-curricular work products that document their educational experiences and accomplishments. Badges, certificates, and other evidence for successfully completed co-curricular activities help document skill development, along with coursework, published abstracts, posters, professional presentations, and publications. Departments should also ensure that regular assessments of student progress occur. These assessments can be in the form of student annual reports, or semi-annual supervisory committee meetings, as well as through qualifying examinations. Departments may want to develop a template for students to use in reporting progress or request updated graduate student curriculum vitae. At the same time, students can self-assess whether their career goals have changed, and if any course correction is needed.

Mentors

At the 2019 Summit, academic leaders recognized that graduate students need guidance and experiences during their degree that help them prepare for future careers. Students need to know the skills and knowledge that are needed for a variety of careers, be given opportunities to develop these competencies, and be mentored throughout the program. Participants also realized that faculty, when mentoring, needs to accept the value and importance of non-academic careers and recognize that the same skills are valuable in an academic career.

The 2022 workshops participants discussed the process of mentoring, including the types of mentors, the role of graduate supervisory committees, and advisor-student interactions. Departments need to clarify the roles of mentors, advisors, and dissertation/thesis committees. Students need intentional and periodic mentoring by faculty, peers, and alumni. Advisors and mentors should help students understand themselves, set goals for themselves, and help them build confidence. Individual Development Plans can help facilitate this process. Faculty mentors may need training in mentoring skills and in the scope, oversight, and boundaries of mentoring exchanges. The group recognized that many faculty would likely need incentives to improve their mentoring. Successful mentoring needs structure. On a well-functioning dissertation/thesis committee, more than one member or advisor should provide mentorship. Regular contact and meetings with the student’s advisor are nonetheless necessary.

Concerns with student mentoring expressed at the 2022 workshops included the primary advisor generally has some level of a vested interest in seeing the research accomplished, particularly if they are funding the work through grants or contracts. As such, they may not want their graduate students to take non-relevant courses or get involved in co-curricular activities that could provide them valuable professional development experiences, but take time away from research. Additionally, advisors may not be fully aware of non-academic or non-research careers and may not have the knowledge or resources to provide advice for students not interested in following in their footsteps. Early development of an IDP provides a mentoring tool for advisors and promotes discussion of the student’s short and long-term goals and interests. In many cases for the student’s career goals, the student and advisor may realize that additional mentors or advice from others is warranted. Depending on the situation, a contract between the student and advisor may be needed. It should explicitly state the advisor and program’s expectations and what they can offer the student, and how the student’s needed or desired skills for their career goal can be met. Explicit expectations should be expressed on both sides, including publications and conference presentations, author and co-authorship, support timeline, time on and off (e.g., working through the summer), skills, coursework, and co-curricular activities.

Graduate students benefit from having multiple mentors who can offer a variety of different perspectives and advice. The student’s advisor is generally considered the primary mentor, though other dissertation/thesis committee members, lab managers or other faculty are additional potential mentors. It is important, however, to emphasize that the students’ advisor is not their only mentor (formal vs. informal mentors), and that students need someone they can go to in confidence.

Other possible mentors, depending on the student, research project and graduate program, include external department faculty, external university faculty, and members of professional organizations. Many members of advisory boards or councils and alumni are very interested in mentoring and only need to be asked. Several Earth and Space Science professional organizations participate in Mentoring365 that matches students and early career professionals with experts in Earth and space sciences and/or have individual mentoring programs for specific careers (GSA, AGU, AMS, ASLO, AIPG, GEMS, etc.). In some cases, departments or individual faculty or faculty groups have partnerships with national labs, federal or state agencies, or various industries, and some individuals from those entities may, as appropriate, serve as mentors. Small and medium size businesses from industry can impart knowledge, provide some level of broad mentoring (not necessarily individual mentoring but perhaps ‘coaching’). Other mentoring networks may be available through demographic or specialty groups (e.g., women in science, minorities, local professional organizations).

Research groups or cohorts of graduate students (e.g., those entering in the same semester or year) can create shared experiences that build confidence and support that combat the “lonely onlys” syndrome. Lab rotations, where possible, may also help build internal networking. Students also benefit from serving as mentors themselves, either as a peer mentor, a teaching assistant, or a mentor for undergraduate or high school students. Mentoring senior theses is particularly beneficial for those going onto academia. Peer mentoring by fellow students can also be effective.

The 2022 workshop participants also discussed the problems presented by “autocratic” advisors and suggested that departments could offer different options for mentoring to overcome them. One suggestion was having multiple projects for doctoral students, with different mentors for each, and perhaps one mentor from outside the student’s area of specialty. Alternatively, requiring two advisors/mentors or more diverse mentoring teams for graduate students is another approach. Collaboration outside the institution can also help in injecting different points of view and/or different perspectives. For example, international opportunities require an understanding of the global workforce, and few faculty are likely to be knowledgeable about this. Those students interested in policy could connect with a present or past Congressional Science Fellow. For students interested in an industry career, learning from the experiences of alumni in industry, and seeking to expand their mentoring to others beyond the small circle of a research group would be helpful.