# Session 6 — Guest: A Pacific Northwest Industry Geophysicist

<span class="ess-badge ess-b-blue">Format B — Practitioner Conversation</span>
<span class="ess-badge ess-b-blue">Week 6</span>
<span class="ess-badge ess-b-amber">Guest: PNW environmental consulting or tech sector</span>

*"What does Tuesday look like?" · Career reality check · Industry skills*

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```{dropdown} Hook (0 – 7 min)
Print a **real PNW junior geophysicist job posting** and project it. Ask students:

**"What on this list do you already know how to do — raise your hand."**

Then: **"What is unfamiliar?"** Mark those items.

**"Let's find out which of the unfamiliar things our guest actually uses every week."**
```

```{dropdown} Guest opening (0 – 15 min)
Guest spends 10 minutes on:

1. One project they're proud of
2. One early-career mistake
3. One skill they use weekly that undergrad didn't prepare them for
```

```{dropdown} Student Q&A (15 – 45 min)
Open Q&A. Seed questions if silence falls:

- How much of your job is Python vs. specialized software vs. writing?
- What makes a junior hire stand out in the first 6 months?
- If you were in this class right now, what would you be doing differently?
- What do employers actually look at in a GitHub portfolio?
- What's a typical project timeline?

The guest should be **honest about uncertainty** — what they don't know, what surprised them — not just presenting successes.
```

```{dropdown} Relevance
**Career:** Environmental and geotechnical consulting is one of the largest BS-level geophysics employers in the PNW. The resistivity and magnetics methods from this week are standard near-surface tools for brownfield characterization, groundwater surveys, and infrastructure siting — exactly what these firms do every day.

**Mentoring:** Students leave this session with a concrete mental model of early-career work — one of the most anxiety-reducing things a course can provide.
```

```{dropdown} Go Deeper
SAGEEP (Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems) conference · AGS career resources

**Action item:** REU application deadlines — this is the week to spend 3 minutes on them. Look up EarthScope, USGS Mendenhall, and NSF REU programs.
```