AFS Special Committee On Educational Requirements: What the Society Is Doing to Help Fisheries Students Find Work

AFS President John Boreman established the AFS Special Committee on Educational Requirements in November 2012 to help ensure that people entering the future workforce will be prepared to tackle issues facing fisheries.  The first two objectives for ths committee are:  1) assemble a list of North American colleges and universities offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in fisheries related disciplines; and 2) survey major employers of students with degrees in fisheries related disciplines to determine what coursework they expect job applicants to have taken.  Progress on these first two objectives will be reported in the presentation.  The second phase of committee work will involve analyses of information collected from the first two objectives.  Specifically, coursework expectations of employers of fisheries students will be compared with:  1) coursework requirements of colleges and universities; 2) degree requirements for AFS certification as a Fisheries Professional; and 3) educational requirement standards for grade-level entry into the federal fish biologist series.  The committee plans to offer recommendations that would better align employer expectations with each set of requirements listed above.