Career Choices in Marine and Environmental Sciences: Navigating a Sea of Options

Abstract

The world of science continues to train and grant degrees to an abundance of eager young investigators, yet the number of tenure-track positions in oceanography and related fields is not increasing. Nevertheless, academic institutions and scientific research programs still largely emphasize academic careers for PhD recipients. Rarely do graduate programs explicitly provide information on, or preparation for, careers outside of the university setting. Here, we describe a series of four workshops on careers and networking that were organized and led by graduate students and postdocs from the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE). This grassroots effort allowed young scientists to sculpt and organize the information and training sought by their peers. As these efforts were highly successful, we recommend that graduate students at other academic institutions consider using this approach.