As we welcome a new cohort of post-bacs to Goddard, we want to take a moment to celebrate the successes and new experiences of our first year as a program.
Programmatics
From September 2023 to June 2024, we hosted 12 professional education events, geared towards helping the post-bacs build the skills they need to succeed in a career in the STEM fields. With workshops ranging from writing a killer personal statement that helps your graduate application shine, to Python coding workshops, to the very honest and important discussions about bouncing back from rejection, we curated a holistic curriculum to support our post-bacs’ professional growth and empower them to take what they’ve learned and thrive in their next positions.
Professional Enrichment Trips
Learning more about the different career pathways available within the STEM field is an important part of the post-bac experience. To give our post-bacs a window into the life of professionals in a wide array of STEM-related careers, we’ve coordinated field trips to places that hire scientists in the DC area, including different offices within NASA Goddard, Wallops Flight Facility, Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), and local universities. Through these experiences, post-bacs had the opportunity to meet with near-peers in STEM-related fields, and make valuable connections to build their network for the future.
Conference Attendance and Scientific Presentations
Many of our post-bacs had the opportunity to present the work that they’ve done at a professional conference, and NASA-PEER was there as well to support them! We cheered for our post-bacs in the audience of their talks or poster sessions, held office hours during the conferences for questions or pep talks, and hosted conference dinners to celebrate the excitement of a successful conference. Internally to Goddard, post-bacs were invited to present their research at Director’s Seminars, and a NASA-PEER organized Post-Bac Research Symposium, to help increase visibility for the amazing work they did to the wider Goddard community.
Fun!
Scientific research can be a stressful field, and it’s important to take time to have fun. Between craft days, Halloween parties, and cookouts, we build a community that grew with and supported each other, and had a blast in the process!
We are so, so incredibly proud of our first cohort, and are so excited to see where you progress over the next few years of your career. And we are so thrilled to welcome the 2024-2025 NASA-PEER cohort to Goddard!
NASA-PEER 