Everyone's a winner who participates in the Coastal Management Fellowship program. Newly graduated students get invaluable work experience. The host organization gets a smart employee. And coastal communities get a workforce better prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
The fellowship program sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center provides postgraduate students with two-year job opportunities with state regulatory programs. The program has been in existence since 1996, and thus far 22 states and 62 fellows have participated.
Recently, GEARS (Global Evaluation and Applied Research Solutions, Inc.) completed an intensive review of the program, and the results are impressive.
From the Fellows
Comments from current and recent graduates of the program include the following:
- The fellowship program allows the fellows to learn a great deal about project management in a relatively short period of time at a relatively early stage in their careers.
- This fellowship gives recent graduates a chance to start their careers with "a BANG, not a whimper."
- Fellows recommend the program to other students because it offers a great introduction to working with state government on real natural resource policy and management issues.
Negative comments had to do with disappointment at the amount of time their mentors were able to spend with them, the politically charged atmosphere surrounding the work, or the fact that their projects weren't as well-defined as they would have liked. Discovering these little truths, however, is a big part of the learning experience.
Host Organizations
Host organizations were universal in their praise. The projects undertaken by the fellows represent real work that must be done. The program allows the organizations to greatly stretch their budgets and in many cases obtain expertise that otherwise would have been unavailable. "We get lots of results for few dollars," said one respondent.
The long-term goal of the program, which is to create a strong community of future coastal resource managers, is also being realized, since 42 percent of past fellows work in state government and 15 percent work in federal government.
Survey Summary
- 77 percent of past fellows continue to work in this field.
- 81 percent report the program improved their ability to get future jobs.
- Past state mentors rank the program 4.5 on a 5-point scale.
- 82 percent of the fellowship projects couldn't have been completed without the fellows' contributions.
- 81 percent of all projects were soup-to-nuts efforts completed during the two-year fellowship window.
The survey not only offers information about how to improve the fellowship program, but also gives program participants insight into what makes a successful experience for the fellow and the hosting organization.
To see the calendar for the Coastal Management Fellowship Program, learn more about the fellowship, and read the survey results, visit www.csc.noaa.gov/fellows.html.
