The American Geosciences Institute created an infographic about skills geoscientists need.
It was developed from a survey about how prepared students are relative to what skills employers
say are important for geoscience professions.
We will learn: The difference between technical and non-technical skills.
How geoscience technical skills are transferrable to other activities or work.
Examples of non-technical skills and how you may already be practicing them.
First, let’s explain what the colors and shapes mean:
Yellow indicates students’ skill preparation; the size of the yellow circle indicates how
prepared students are from their courses.
Blue represents employers’ perspectives about the most important skills in the workforce.
When the yellow circle is bigger than the blue one, students feel more prepared in that
topic than what employers say is needed for the workforce.
Conversely, when the blue circle is bigger, employers say the skill is more important
compared to how prepared students feel about that skill.
Technical skills help you to conduct your science and include the scientific knowledge
and applications you learn while in school.
Here we see that for most categories, students are well prepared.
Non-technical skills are those you likely already use and practice and are
vitally important for exceling in the workplace.
First, let’s examine this Health, Safety, Regulations circle, which includes
Quality Assurance and Quality Control.
Employers see these as important skills, particularly for the environmental consulting or energy industries.
Geoscientists assess and reduce risk by following established safety guidelines and regulations
for environmental clean-ups or energy extraction, and make sure
that the sites meet current federal standards.
Yet the relatively small yellow circle indicates that students don’t feel prepared in this topic.
However, there are opportunities to learn this skill.
For example, getting an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) certification
is one avenue for learning or strengthening these skills.
There are OSHA certifications one can get specifically for earth science work that can
increase your competitiveness in the geoscience workforce and are transferrable to other health
and safety disciplines such as construction, disaster response,
electrical work, or risk management.
Some of you may already have much of this knowledge if you’ve worked in any safety-related job.
Let’s go back to the infographic for a geophysics example.
Seismology represents a niche job market.
These careers primarily attract students who are drawn to physics, thus take
several physics courses in their academic preparation.
Skills for seismology include creative thinking using math, physics, and
computational and data science.
Although the blue circle represents the smaller number of job opportunities in the niche market,
these skills translate to a wide range of other jobs to solve some of the today’s
challenging questions, such as understanding glacial dynamics in climate change, how to
improve earthquake and tsunami early warning systems, and investigating ecological systems
and behaviors like whale migration.
Furthermore, if you know how to code or do data analyses using spreadsheet software,
you are already on the right track to using these skills for seismology!
What about the non-technical skills?
As students, you employ time management skills to determine when to do homework, study for
exams, and juggle academics with personal interests.
Students who also hold jobs outside of school know that managing your time to handle multiple
priorities simultaneously is critical for both schoolwork and employment.
You can improve these skills by creating a chart that outlines important projects and
tracks your progress on a calendar to help you determine when to start tasks to get them
done by the deadline.
With every project, geoscientists must consider the ethical implications to ensure the most
positive impact on our communities.
That is because Geoscience directly impacts people, whether for preparing for natural
hazards, conducting environmental clean-up, or using ground penetrating radar (GPR) to
assess important infrastructure or conduct forensic science.
There is a whole discipline of geoscience ethics, called “Geo-ethics”, that explores
geoscientists’ behaviors and practices wherever human activities interact with the earth system.
Geoethics covers a broad range of topics like: (1) ensuring legislation relating to geoscience
positively impacts society, (2) reducing geoscience impacts (like contaminated drinking water)
for marginalized communities, or (3) exploring the ethical issues related to climate change.
[recording 5] The ability to foster relationships with friends,
classmates, coaches, or supervisors is a skill we constantly use.
It ties into our identities in school or the workplace, how we perceive others, and whether
we get along with those who hold opposing views.
To be successful in life, you’ll need to collaborate.
We can strengthen relationship building while at school by talking to a professor that you’ve
never met before or teaming up with different classmates on group projects.
These will help you practice networking too, because networking is relationship building!
Look at the skills we haven’t covered and do your own research to learn about why they’re
important in the workplace.
Practicing these skills are critically important for internships or when you graduate and
want to find a geoscience occupation.
And remember, as you learn about and practice these skills, think about the ways they’re
transferable to other activities, positions, or courses.
Thinking creatively like this will prepare you even more
as you find your geoscience career path!