Geoscience Career and Graduate School Resources
Recommended Reading
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The Job Market
- Articles published in The Chronicle of Higher Education concerning
the academic job market; presents some opposing points of view and calls
for change in the way research universities think about and train Ph.D.s.
-
PhDs.Org - Contains lots of good
information about careers in science, choosing a graduate school, the tight
job market for science Ph.D.'s, and other info that is well worth checking
out if you are considering going to graduate school; link may be slow.
Career Information
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National Association of State Boards
of Geology - If you plan to become a professional geologist working
in industry or consulting, you must become certified or registered in most
states. Check out this site for information on the examinations and eligibility
requirements in different states.
-
To
Boldly Go... A Practical Career Guide for Scientists (1996) - A
career guide by Peter Fiske; one copy is available in Dr.
Stimac's office or you can buy it online from AGU ($13.30 to $19.00);
information on science employment and opportunities, career planning, self-assessment,
research science, resumes and CVs, resume case studies, cover letters,
interviews, perceptions and realities.
Graduate School Information
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Geoscience Departments
WWW Directory - Exhaustive list of links to geoscience programs
in colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada; great resource when
searching for graduate schools!
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U.S. News
Ph.D. Program Rankings - Graduate school rankings for geology and
its subfields, as well as other disciplines; be sure to understand how
these rankings are generated before giving them much weight (some people
complain they are biased)
Fellowships, Scholarships, and Internships
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Internship
Opportunities forEIU Geology/Geography Students - Under the direction
of Dr. Gutowski, the department has for many years been able to get internships
with local and regional townships, businesses, and organizations so that
students can gain experience working in real-world settings.
-
Teach for America
- Program to recruit recent graduates in all fields to teach for two
years in "under-resourced" urban or rural K-12 schools; a great opportunity
to make a difference, as well as gain some valuable teaching experience
without having to go through a certification process.
-
Eco.Org - This environmental careers
organization has some of everything; News section has listing of environmental
career links, Career Services has a listing of paid environmental internships,
Publications sections has some good books for sale, etc.
-
National Physical Science Consortium
(NPSC) - Offers an outstanding doctoral fellowship package for
underrepresented women and minorities in the physical sciences; fellowship
is renewable for up to six years and includes summer work experience.
-
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) fellowships - The STAR (Science to Achieve Results)
program offers a generous graduate fellowship renewable for up to three
years that is aimed towards students working in environmentally related
research; other comparable fellowships are available for students attending
historically Black, Hispanic, or American Indian institutions.
Job Classifieds
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Eos - Weekly
AGU publication that has mostly academic classifieds with some student
opportunities; online ads available only to members (student membership
in AGU costs $7/year) or available from
several of the faculty.
-
USAJOBS - Listing of current
job openings with the federal government; you can search for jobs open
to geologists, hydrologists, etc.
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Earthworks-
Online job ads (academic and otherwise) and place to post your resume for
potential employers.
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Geosci-Jobs
- Online job ad listings; only partial list is available to non-paying
customers.
-
CareerMine
- Online, searchable job listings related to the mining industry; many
of the listings are only viewable by paid subscribers.
Geoscience Associations
These groups are often good sources of information about the discipline,
and many host annual meetings to encourage communication between colleagues
(networking!). Most have reduced membership dues and meeting fees
for students (e.g., AGU membership only costs $7/year for students) and
provide weekly, monthly, or quarterly publications to members. The
list below is by no means complete, so you may encounter other organizations
as you surf the web.
Web-Surfing Recommendations
The web is a great place to look to find out what kinds of companies
hire geologists; for non-academic job opportunities, use a search engine
to check out the following subjects:
-
Government Agencies:
-
Consulting Companies:
environmental, hydrogeology, hydrologic, water quality, geologic, geophysical,
petroleum, geographic information systems or GIS (GIS
WWW Resource List, for example).
-
Industrial Companies and Commodities:
mining (InfoMine & Industry
Book - mining, for example), tile, clay, limestone, cement, coal, oil/petroleum,
crushed stone, sand and gravel, industrial minerals, lime, soda ash, trona,
zeolite, metals, phosphate rock, gypsum, diamond.
Search engines to try include Lycos,
HotBot,
AltaVista,
Yahoo!,
Excite,
and WebCrawler
Last modified 9/14/01