Workforce Preparation - A Breakout Session for the Building Strong Geoscience Departments Visiting Workshop Program

We have designed a workshop breakout session and accompanying web based materials to assist geoscience departments in better preparing their students for professional careers following graduation. The session explores ways to obtain feedback about career preparation from employers and alumni that can be used to develop more effective curriculum, as well as departmental activities to better prepare students for employment opportunities. In addition, it identifies sources outside a department that can be used in the workforce preparation process and methods to assess any changes implemented to prepare students for the workforce. Concrete examples include feedback from a survey of recent (< 5 years) alumni at the University of Texas at El Paso, student run research meetings with built-in assessment opportunities, and a wealth of on-line resources. The session was initially tested in June 2009 at the Strengthening Your Strong Geoscience Department workshop. Comments from the June participants have been used to improve the session for the 2009-2010 “visiting workshop” program.