BRIDGING THE GEOSCIENCE WORKFORCE GAP: A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR NON-TRADITIONAL STEM STUDENTS

With the geoscience workforce predicted to continue diminishing in the next several decades, a national urgency to replenish these geoscience positions necessitates unique and deliberate recruitment and structured training efforts. To address this plight, the New York City College of Technology is piloting a geoscience workforce preparation and geoscience career mentoring program for non-geoscience minority STEM students beginning at the critical juncture of their junior year. The overall goal of the program is to create a viable and sustainable pathway to the dwindling geoscience workforce by tapping into a non-traditional pool of students. STEM students will be recruited each year to participate in a structured geoscience workforce model program. The students will not only be supported with cohort-building activities, but they will also participate in two geoscience internship programs that will equip them with geoscience knowledge and workforce skills, summer internships at a federal, local, or private geoscience facility, mentoring by geoscience practitioners, and networking opportunities with geoscience companies and geoscience professional societies. The expectation through this initiative will be that many underrepresented minority students who would otherwise not pursue a geoscience career may now choose to follow a geoscience corridor that could not only lead to lucrative geoscience careers, but could also help to ameliorate the nation’s grave geoscience workforce dilemma.