Episode 3: How do hands-on experiences translate into skills in the workforce? On this episode of the Art of Subduction, we hear from GeoFORCE alum Jennifer Peña and her journey in both pursuing and working in the geosciences! Hear about her GeoFORCE experience, and how her experiences have helped shape her career. Did you like this podcast? Leave us a rating and review! Follow us on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever else you get podcasts. Got a lava questions or want to be featured? Email me at gaurdiya@gmail.com! Transcript [00:00:00] Diya Gaur: This is so good. Okay, so Jennifer, just if you don't already know me, which you already do, but my name is Diya. I'm a senior at Lamar High School, and I participated in the GeoForce program from 9th to 12th grade, so super exciting for me, and I know you yourself have participated in GeoForce, and now you're in Geology, so that's super cool. [00:00:48] Jennifer Peña: Yeah, how do you feel? Um, well, hey, Diya, nice to see you again. Um, I feel great, honestly. So, like you were saying, I was a student myself in high school whenever I went through the GeoForce program. Unlike yourself, I was actually part of the Southwest group, so I'm from Eagle Pass, Texas, all the way at the border. And I am the oldest of my family. So whenever GeoForce came to my school and they did the whole presentation and all the things. I remember telling my parents about it, and they were already kind of like, who in the world is giving you free trips to all these random places? It makes no sense. They were very skeptical at first, obviously, because, you know, parents. They were just kind of waiting for that at the end of orientation slide to say, okay, well now it's cost this much and this much and this much to do the trips. But they were very happy when it did not say that, so that was great. Um, and then doing it all throughout four years was pretty wonderful. I will say I did not initially get into GeoForce because I was in love with rocks. I was more so in love with the idea of having these new experiences, you know, meeting these new people, especially people outside of my hometown. And then it just so happened that doing it, I fell in love with geology a little bit. And after our 11th grade trip, which is for Geo4s, for people who don't know, is the trip that we go to the Pacific Northwest and we go to places like Mount Hood, Crater Lake. Being there, I realized, okay, well, I can do geology. Like, it's interesting. It's more than just these beautiful places, you know, there is science behind it and there's reasoning behind it. And so that kind of interested me. And then our twelfth grade trip, my year was the first year they brought us to Austin, and the first year they started doing, like, the Austin trip as the twelfth grade trip, and so it really kind of solidified that I was going to apply to UT after being here. I realized, okay, well, I'll do that. I'll do geology at UT, I'll apply, let's see what happens. And then I was fortunate enough to get in, and so then I did my Bachelor's in Geoscience here at UT. It was pretty, pretty fun. Pretty good time. [00:03:01] Diya Gaur: Wow. That's amazing. Actually, yeah, I can relate to that a lot, myself, as like, you know, I went on these GeoForce trips, and now I actually want to pursue a major in Geology, so to hear that from you, like, as someone who shares that experience, like, super inspiring, that's really cool. Yeah, [00:03:17] Jennifer Peña: it's, it's insane. And I don't think I would have, if I were to talk to my ninth grade self, she would not say, oh you're doing geology and you did this and you did that, you're working for GeoForce, like none of that, none of that would have even like come to my mind. But after all these experiences, I don't know, GeoForce just hooked me in a little bit. True, [00:03:38] Diya Gaur: true. So, I mean, how would you describe your overall experience, like, studying at UT and the geosciences there? [00:03:45] Jennifer Peña: Studying at UT was really incredible because it allowed me to do so many things within the realm of geology. I will say whenever I did come into it, I kind of came into it with the base, Of, okay, I'm gonna do geology, I'm gonna go to oil and gas, and that's my life. Like, that is what's gonna happen, and that's how I'm gonna make money, and that's how I'm gonna, like, progress. Because that's kind of all I knew, and at the time, GeoForce was more so interested in showing that aspect of it, because that was a lot of our donor base. And so, that's really kind of most of what I knew about geology. And then coming to the Jackson School, I realized there's so much more, and there's so many more possibilities. Like, I didn't even know about hydrogeology or anything like that until I got here, and I saw that people were majoring in that, and people were making their whole lives around things of that sort. So, eventually, I mean, I'm not a geologist ...
