Collaborative Research: Universal skills for Geoscience Graduate Student Success in the Workforce

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Although geoscience professions have evolved with geoscience research and technology, different skills and competencies are needed by graduate students to be successful in the non-academic workforce. The investigators propose to determine the skills and competencies that should be part of graduate geoscience education, and the best means of developing these in graduate geoscience programs nationally. They will build on accomplishments from their previous initiative "The Future of Undergraduate Geoscience Education". This effort worked with geoscience employers and academics to identify skills, competencies and concepts needed by undergraduates to be successful in graduate school and the future workforce. Department heads and Chairs from across the country developed action plans for incorporating these results into their departments' undergraduate programs. For this activity, the investigators will hold an Employers Workshop with participants that span the breadth of geoscience professions to define the skills and competencies geoscience graduate students need to be successful in the workforce more broadly than academia. They will invite a range of employers from those actively involved in recruiting new hires to senior executives. Subsequently the investigators will organize a summit for departmental heads, chairs, and graduate program directors to discuss ways to implement change in individual departments and programs. Participants will be invited from a broad spectrum of earth, ocean, and atmospheric science programs at Masters and PhD granting institutions. An important outcome will be the transformation of graduate level curriculum for geoscience programs to better align course offerings and activities with future professional needs of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences students.