NASA Arizona Space Grant Intern Alumna One Step Closer to Geological Sciences Dream Job

Arizona State University student Samantha Beauchaine will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in geological sciences from the School of Earth and Space Exploration this May. It is just one step toward her ultimate goal: a career investigating complex geological processes and their real-world implications.

Her decision to pursue a degree and career in geology was not always the plan. In fact, it completely changed her life.

“I spent much of my life after high school working,” Beauchaine says. “I wasn’t ready for college and spent years trying new things in the ‘real world.’ I learned how to get a job, manage employees and grow in a company, but something was still missing.”

It wasn’t until she was offered a promotion to upper management that she finally realized what that was. She wanted to return to school full-time as a nontraditional student and pursue her childhood passion: geology.

So, Beauchaine turned down the promotion and left her hometown of St. Louis and all her loved ones to move to Arizona and follow her dream.

“As a geology major, I wanted to be surrounded by mountains, and ASU was one of the best places to be for that. I also heard great things about the geology program and the professors,” Beauchaine says.

Once she arrived at ASU, she immersed herself in her classes. Professor Steven Semken first met Beauchaine in his first-year Earth and planetary sciences majors course in 2023.

“From the start I found Sam to be an enthusiastic and very hardworking student, always posing thoughtful questions in class and just soaking up and thinking about everything we discussed and did,” Semken says. “There was no doubt of her strong passion for the geosciences.”

Full article available on: ASU.edu

Author Credit: By Gabrielle Sangervasi

Image Credit: Photo courtesy of Samantha Beauchaine

Original Post Date: 5.9.25