Professional registration

These are concrete recommendations to enhance support for QES students aiming to register with EGBC as geoscientists in training.

UPDATE – FEBRUARY 2024: The new list of courses accepted by EGBC for qualifying as a professional geophysicist in BC has been posted. See the list here.

R13. Improve support for professional registration

Engineering students already are well supported, and geology students also have support. To enhance support for QES students, the following six recommendations were derived partly from the work of Prof. Craig Nichol (Dep’t EEGS, UBC-OK) and presented to the CCCESD in Oct. 2022 (meeting summary PDF). Conversations with geophysics students and a meeting with EGBC officials also contributed.

  1. Appoint a Professions Advisor, ideally one person for all and who can liaise with EGBC.
    • This person should be added to the CCCESD website, this to be provided to Geoscientists Canada. Needs discussion and approval in EOAS.
    • Also maintain connections with CCCESD and Craig Nichol.
    • Identify the liaison person at EGBC.
    • Recommend annual meeting to upate changes at EOAS and at EGBC.
  2. Clarify student advising strategy regarding professional registration. Leverage Craig Nichol’s (UBC-OK) report on best practices for student advising regarding professional registration, presented to CCCESD, Oct 2022. See Nichol, Craig, 2022.
  3. Prepare and submit for vetting a selfcheck list for geophysicists that aligns EOAS courses with EGBC requirements.
    • DONE: – currently being vetted by EGBC (November 2023). Contact there is Vicki Charman <vcharman@egbc.ca>.
  4. A slight adjustment to geophysics degree requirements would help students meet the geology requirements in EGBC. This would clarify NECESSARY courses and replace redundant courses with others. Geology is an important “missing piece” in our geophysics degree, so consider adding some or all of courses EOSC 220, 221, 222, and 223 (in that order) to the requirements – or as “highly recommended”. For students NOT wanting to satisfy profession registration requirements, options could be accepted, such as more physics, math, ocgy or atsc.
  5. UBC’s career Services should eventually be appraised of the results of mapping UBC degree specialization course lists against EGBC requirements.
  6. Other EOAS disciplines would benefit from notes regarding preparation for gaining professional status. This information belongs in the proposed Canvas advising site. Explore relevant orgnaizations such as https://eco.ca/, perhaps starting by asking C. Nichol for advice.

This next sections include (A) Relevance; a summary of why it is important to prepare students for registration as professional geoscientists in BC, (B) Ongoing Activity, an outline of activities in progress as of Fall 2023, and (C) Comments about geophysics courses.

A) Relevance

Over 80% of EOSC B.Sc. students aim to enter the workforce upon graduation. In particular:

  • Only 18% of respondents said “grad school” or “research” (not counting engineers) when asked about intended careers (Jolley, 2020);
  • 80-100% of respondents in engineering, geology, geophysics and atmospheric science programs intend to register as professionals (Jolley, 2020);
  • geophysics students explicitly asked that EOAS "provide opportunities to meet EGBC requirements (Jolley, 2018).

In addition, the AGI's Status of Recent Geoscience Graduates, 2021, states (pg. 57) that in the USA, "deficiencies in formal professional credentials are a challenge for recent graduates in securing employment".

It is the Department's responsibility to ensure that our graduates are as well prepared as possible for their entry into the workforce, within the "normal" set of credits required for a BSc Major degree, and within the normal anticipated time-frame of 4 years.

Guidelines are needed to articulate the scope of support provided by the Department, and to ensure students can properly prepare for corresponding careers. Guidelines need to be visible – and promoted – so that prospective students (and their parents) can see benefits & rewards, and set appropriate expectations.

B) Ongoing activity

  1. A department-wide advising and student information resource is being built for deployment as a Canvas "course" into which all students can be registered. It will provide basic information that program advisors need to convey to all students. Details about professional registration are part of this resource collection. See the Canvas-based resource page for details.
  2. For prerequisite and course dependencies with names, descriptions and links to UBC calendar, see our interactive course map.
  3. Mapping EOAS courses onto the EGBC requirements list: with the help of Craig Nichol. (UBC-OK), information is being prepared for students and advisors to ensure that students are qualified for professional registration upon graduation. Corresponding tasks completed include:
    1. UBC-V geology courses have been mapped by James Scoates onto EGBC's Geology Checklist for Self-Evaluation.
    2. UBC-V geophysics courses have been mapped onto EGBC's Geophysics Checklist for Self-Evaluation. Results have been discussed with M. Bostock (Aug 2023), and they should be consistent with the Geoscience Knowledge and Experience Requirements for Professional Registration in Canada.
    3. A blank EGBC geophysics students' self-check list is available here.
    4. EGBC also has a 4-pg Guidelines document.
  4. To support advising and student planning, a spreadsheet table with the Geophysics specialization course list from the UBC Calendar has been prepared to help students track courses they take against Faculty of Science graduation requirements and EGBC professional registration requirements. This table is provided here as a one-page PDF, or can be obtained as an MS-Excel spreadsheet from F. Jones.

C) Comments about geophysics courses and EGBC registration

Here are thoughts and comments arising from mapping the requirements and options from the UBC academic calendar for a BSc in Geophysics against the EGBC “self check list” (see this spreadsheet here ).

NOTE these comments are not about the intrinsic worth or value of any particular course. They specifically target requirements for students (the majority) who will need (or want) to register as professionals in BC.

  1. For professional registration as a geophysicist, EGBC requires 4 “Foundational Geoscience” courses – i.e. basic geology. This is not only sensible but desired by students and employers, based on conversations with both, and survey data from geophysics students: EOAS Geop survey report, 2019.
  2. The EOAS geophysics degree has NO formal required applied geophysics course.
    1. EOSC 350 is only “recommended”. It should be required as it is the only “exploration” course at UBC. (Although, see notes about EOSC 454 below.)
    2. Calendar note 10 “Students interested in a career in exploration geophysics are encouraged to take EOSC 350 or PHYS 301” makes no sense – these are nothing like equivalent. EOSC 350 or EOSC 454 will be much more correct, and one or both should be required.
  3. EOSC 454 is being reintroduced in the 2023-2024 teaching session. Depending on goals, it could work for GP-C24, “E&EM methods”, or GP-C46 “EM theory”, or FGP-A4 “exploration geophysics”.
  4. Field experience is required – EOSC 223 is the only thing that seems to make sense, unless a work experience can be applied. But it requires EOSC 221, which requires EOSC 220.
  5. EOSC 212 has only marginal application in EGBC as GP-C05, “Global geophysics”. ALSO, it is not a prerequisite for any other courses in the 2023 Geophysics calendar.
  6. EOSC 250 has only marginal application in EGBC as GP-C41 “Calculus” or GP-C58, “Vector and tensor analysis”. It is a “One of” prerequisite for 352 & 410. The EGBC list has no “fields” or “fluxes” category.
  7. MATH 317 “Calculus IV” is required for geoph degree, but overlaps with EOSC 250. For EGBC there seems no place for it except same items as EOSC 250.
  8. EOSC 410 can probably be applied for GP-C22 “Analytical Methods”, or GP-C54 “Numerical Methods or Computing”.
  9. EOSC 450 may be only marginal as GP-C25, “Gravity & Magnetics”.
  10. EOSC 453 only “sort of” fits FGP-A2 “Global geophysics or physics of the Earth”.