TRACKING THE VARIOUS AND CHANGING PATHS OF GEOSCIENCE GRADUATES INTO THE WORKFORCE FROM THE ASSOCIATE’S DEGREE TO THE DOCTORAL DEGREE (Invited Presentation)

To effectively assist students in the transitions between institutions and into the workforce, it is essential to understand the recent history of choices made and various pathways followed by geoscience graduates through their postsecondary degrees and into the workforce. AGI’s Geoscience Student Exit Survey data can provide information on choices of graduates from 2013-2015, which provides a preliminary understanding of student decisions. To be seen in the future is how the external forces of the commodity cycle will have impacted our current graduating cohorts. But a look at some historical sources may shed light on what to expect.

The American Geosciences Institute’s Workforce Program gained access to multiple years of the National Science Foundation’s restricted–use data files for the Survey of College Graduates and the Survey of Earned Doctorates. Using this data, the trends in choices of geoscience students through their degrees and into the workforce can be mapped out for several years. This presentation will provide decadal analyses of the paths of geoscience graduates in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s up until 2013. These analyses show trends in the changing demographics and dynamics of students’ completion of associate’s degrees compared to students that do not attend a two-year college, as well as those students that continue on into graduate degrees. The paths will also detail the changing demographics of students as they exit their postsecondary degrees and enter the workforce, as well as how these paths change depending on degree type, field within the geosciences, and industry of choice entering the workforce.