It honestly feels like public science is collapsing within America. I expected cuts to atmospheric and oceanic science given that the Heritage Foundation (creators of Project 2025) said they were going to break up NOAA due to our “climate change alarmism”. However, I didn’t expect that nearly every field of science would also get defunded this year, especially medical research. Anti-intellectualism is destroying the United States :/

Professors in STEM often need a PhD and postdoctoral degree to get a teaching job at a university. And those jobs were difficult to get before the federal government’s cuts in higher education.

This person is unfortunately correct. One of the most educated and skilled employees within my group at NOAA was rejected from a job in France. Apparently, the board in charge of that scientific organization rejected her because they didn’t want to hire an American :/

That’s a good idea! And if I get rejected, at least I’ll know which new skills to focus on. In the meantime, I’ll try to figure out what other career besides tech would fit my education and skill set.

I have a master’s of science in atmospheric and oceanic science, which unfortunately is a very niche field. I made a miscalculation that my field would grow due to the increase in severe weather and negative affects from climate change.

Thanks for your advice :)

Yes, I’m a contractor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Atmospheric and Oceanic science has been heavily defunded this year. A quarter of my program at NOAA has been laid off this year.

If I lost my science job, I was planning on going into tech. Now where do I go??? It feels like the walls are closing in.

I should have gone to a trade school instead :/ STEM was a bad choice.

My buddy works at NOAA’s GFDL, who develops the GFS model. A quarter of his team was illegally fired back in February during the DOGE bullshit, including folks who work on our hurricane models.

It’s all part of project 2025. Defund and gut NOAA, then use the degradation of our products and services as an excuse to privatize everything. Currently, we are desperately trying to keep things running, but the government shutdown has only made things worse :/