Career Treks
One of the best ways to expand your network and define your career path is by making direct connections with professionals in the field. That's why we take Master of Energy Transition (MET) students on career treks to U.S. energy hubs, where you meet with decision-makers and staff, tour facilities, and hear directly from teams in industry, government, and local organizations about the current state of the energy sector.
MET students talk with startup founders at the Greentown Labs Climatetech Summit.
A 360° view of the energy landscape
You'll have the opportunity to take part in two career treks during your studies in the Master of Energy Transition (MET) program. Past treks have included trips to Boston, NYC, Houston, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
The organizations we visit mirror the interdisciplinary MET curriculum, so you'll engage with sectors spanning technology, policy, finance, and community impact. Local trek hosts range in scale from early-stage startups to multinational energy companies, from municipal leaders to regional grid operators.
We also often engage directly with Dartmouth alumni at host organizations and gatherings of local alumni clubs.
Our past career treks have included visits with:
- Renewable energy and consulting firms
- A major utility and an independent grid operator—including a tour of their control room
- A sit-down lunch with state energy commissioners
- Cutting-edge research labs
- Grassroots climate advocacy coalitions
- Investment firms and meetings with venture investors
- Startup incubators and discussions with climatetech founders
- Offshore wind developers
- Geothermal developers
- AI-driven energy innovation platform developers
“Learning directly from leaders in renewable energy, AI-driven energy innovation, consulting, and utility operations gave me a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges of the energy transition.”
— Shariful Islam GR‘26, PhD student, University of Louisiana at Lafayette and researcher, Louisiana Solar Energy Lab
What to expect on career treks
The MET cohort travels together for 5-10 days, led by Irving Institute staff, meeting with teams at a wide range of organizations deeply involved in the clean energy transition.
Every day begins with a briefing on the organizations you'll visit and the people you’ll meet. While each visit is different, they often include tours, meetings with staff, overviews of day-to-day operations, briefings from human resource professionals, testimonies from local community members, and personal career-path stories.
Alongside downtime built into each trek, you'll also have dedicated time to set up meetings with new connections—a great way to learn more about potential professional opportunities.
“The career treks connected academic concepts to real-life application, which is invaluable on its own, but even more importantly, we connected with alumni across the country in the energy sector. This made the community feel much larger than Hanover and reflects just how tight-knit and far-reaching the Dartmouth network truly is.”
Amy Fulton GR'26
An extended classroom
Career treks take classroom learning into the field, connecting you directly with the organizations shaping the energy transition. Beyond building your professional network, these immersive visits show how the many dimensions of socio-technical energy systems intersect in practice. For MET students, that may mean sitting down with global investors to explore how capital decisions balance risk, community impact, and long-term value. Or mapping the full energy value chain from trading to project development. Or examining how decades of experience in the oil and gas sector are informing the way emerging renewable technologies scale today.
“On the California trek, I really felt an ‘aha’ moment, where I was able to see the implementation of all the things that we learned in courses in the field. So talking with Andrew McAllister '87, California Energy Commissioner, about how the California energy landscape looks, how the policy landscape looks, and things that they're dealing with, like high utility rates…. Those are all things we talked about in class, but seeing it firsthand from a commissioner's point of view was really impactful.”
— Kadijat Alakiu GR'26, Energy Industry Analyst, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
Frequently Asked Questions
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Join a community of leaders and problem solvers dedicated to accelerating an affordable, reliable, and equitable clean energy transition for the benefit of society.
Priority deadline: January 15, 2027
Final deadline: March 15, 2027