isohume

Yeah you don't hear too many English names. Normally German or Nordic like...Wein, Ekman, Kirchhoff, Stefan-Boltzman, Planck, Helmholtz, etc. No coincidence really. lol

I know it's the common thought about Asians that they are book smart to a fault...but our group of Asian grad students taught synoptics and other undergrad met classes. I'd have to say they definitely knew the forecast process inside and out. Very impressive and inspirational actually. I know you're not stereotyping btw. I guess it's all relative to our personal experiences.

Whoa...that's an unfair stereotype!

I guess we wont see another era like that. The older guys at our office always tell me of the super bids in the 90s. 5 leads at almost every office...and then the backfill 5 journeys at almost every office? Wow! Seems like you just had to have your top locations picked out and there you go...promotion and all! Fun times.

Experience will stand out on your resume more than anything else. I went to Iowa State and I started gaining experience the summer before my junior year. I was a student volunteer at the Des Moines NWS office for a summer where I gained invaluable procedural and forecasting experience. I then looked at the jobs board in the met dept and saw a year-long intern spot at the Iowa Dept of Natural Resources doing air quality forecasting and air pollution modeling. I jumped on that...even tho I knew it would be a hectic schedule commuting an hour and a half a day and working 20 hours a week during my junior year. The summer before and during my senior year I worked on a paid research project with one of my professors, which required me to be in the grad offices every weeknight for 4 hours a night. By the time I started bidding out on NWS intern spots I had plenty of good experience to fill up my resume and make it highly competitive. I bid out on 3 intern spots and I was offered two of them in the first 3 months out of school. High grades are expected too...but real life experience is invaluable and it can really show your aptitude and motivation more than anything else imo.

I will. Hopefully I can get a written response from the union and if I'm allowed to post it I will.

I don't want to hear someone say something. I want to see the ruling in writing and I want to know why the union has not sent out an official document on this new hiring practice to anyone in NOAA. I will ask our station union representative to look into it though.

I want to see this supposed ruling in writing. I have a hard time believing a major hiring practice change has been made in NOAA and I and others employed by NOAA haven't heard anything about it. If this would've happened...the bargaining unit (union) would have sent out a communique detailing this new law to everyone. I just don't believe the hearsay about all this is all.

It doesn't necessarily mean qualified veterans beat you out. It could have been qualified non-veterans as well. I'm not sure who told you that veterans "block" panels, but I'm wondering if some sort of lip services was given to you. Those folks at OPM and EASC etc are not exactly known for willfully helping people out. I asked for a sanitized panel (seeing what my score was wrt others w/o seeing their names) recently, something that is legally my right, and they danced around it and never sent me one. I concluded they just didn't want to do the paperwork.

As far as I know and what is stated on the OPM site is that honorably discharged veterans receive a 5 point preference. Disabled vets receive 10 pts. They are then graded and ranked alongside everyone else. The MIC may then choose anyone for interviews and hire whomever they want after that. They are not required to hire a vet just because they made the panel. This would be a huge change in the federal hiring practice and I have never heard of it nor of it being practiced by MICs. Until I see it in writing I will assume the hiring policy has not changed wrt veterans.

Yeah I've read about their recent struggles in the met thread. I'm just curious about this ruling. What it's all about and where I can find it. I'm interested in reading it.

I've never heard of this and I haven't seen it practiced in recent hirings. Do you have a link to this ruling? It should be public domain if it involves federal hiring practices.

So you learned the calc while learning thermo?

Yeah there were the forecasting contests, but there was never no class that taught pure weather forecasting. Synoptics came close and gave you the basics of what you need to forecast without the models. Forecasting is more of an art than a science anyway...and folks will have their own subjective way of perceiving data. Much of forecasting is learned through experience. I think the university programs realize this and that's why they concentrate on the science end of meteorology.

No met program really has a forecasting class. I'm just amazed Kean doesn't require chem or calc III. How did you understand the partial derivations required to derive the met equations?

Wait a minute...no vector calc? In association with a met degree? Double wow.

What school did you go to?

Wow.

Besides what the others have said here...chemistry is the basic science of how nature works at the molecular level. The chemistry required in a met BS program isn't that demanding, but it covers quite a bit of material. Many earth sciences require chemistry and it provides a good base or discipline for critical thinking...which is needed in all the sciences.

It's the same here...NOAA, the NWS etc., only hire U.S. citizens. Visiting Scientist positions are open to foreign nationals tho...which is kinda the point.

Yeah true, any type of forecasting experience would help the most I suppose. But outside of that...any experience is good experience. Blah blah...this has been hashed out tirelessly in this thread already.

There are no guarantees on anything in life. Folks don't need an IT degree alongside a met degree to get a met job That may have helped in your case...but it is false logic to believe that is needed in all cases. I'd even venture a guess that the majority of professional mets don't have an IT degree or some other degree listed on their resumes.

I never implied if you don't get the job it means you didn't work hard enough. I'm saying you didn't do enough specifically for yourself to make the top percentile. You didn't assess your competition well enough in order to swim with them.

No I hear what you're saying. I still contend that the only person to blame if you dont get the job you are after is yourself. You can't blame a "highly qualified competition pool". Because...like it or not, that "highly qualified competition pool" is not ever going to go away. Yes you may need to move or take an undesireable location to gain your position...but that is really the nature of the beast in met and folks should know that going in. It's not for everybody. It's an inherent part of the career path that is similar to other fields like geology.

I never assumed you were an unemployed met. Yes the competition pool is high in met...but probably not the highest on the job market. I know the IT field and other earth science fields have a very high competition pool as well. It all really boils down to knowing what you need to do in order to put yourself at the top and into the interview pool. We all know the competition is high...but that isn't a valid excuse if we dont get the job. It is all on us, for either not knowing the level of our competition or for not taking the appropriate measures in our careers to be highly competitive.