Different Geology Degrees

I've been chatting to my Geology teacher recently at what geology has to offer at university and what I want to do for a career. I would love a career in geology and in an ideal world, would love a job where I visit several geological active places throughout the world and take measurements and samples where I can come home and analyse them.

Ideally I would love a 50/50 lab/field job where I'm not stuck in a chair for the rest of my life. However I am unsure what type of geology degree to follow at Uni, be it just a standard course in Geology, Applied geology, geophysics.. Etc

If someone with experience with this matter could get back to me about this, it would be awesome! Thank you very much!

Jack :smile:

Reply 1

Zottula

Original post by Xetter

Well depends on what you like. If you are really into maths/physics - take geophysics (although geology will involve some maths/physics as well). If you would prefer a mixture of chemistry, physics, maths and some biology and enjoy looking at rocks/minerals/fossils then take geology. A geology course will also involve a mapping project. Some universities offer a dual honours geology and geophysics course. So that is an option. Both will involve some fieldwork, although at my university the geology students get more fieldwork. Geophysics will involve collection of more quantitive data, and will involve using various pieces of equipment. Geologists won't use so much equipment in the field, and carry out structural measurements and examine rocks. Geologists may take home rock samples for lab analysis too. The geology students at my university also carry out more microscope work. The geophysics students only do this in first year.

There is also Earth Sciences, but in a lot of cases it's the same as geology. At my university (Imperial), Earth Science is the degree you get if the modules you take don't quite fit into any of the streams on offer (geology, geophysics, g&g, environmental geoscience). In most cases, people on the Earth Sciences course are people who were taking geology, but decided not to do an independent mapping project and instead did a desk based project.

Again, Geosciences is basically the same as Geology/Earth Science. Often courses between different universities have slightly different names, but are pretty much the same thing anyway. I've also noticed that some places the 3 year course is called BSc Geology, but the 4 years one gets called MSci Geoscience.

If you're really into the Environment, then there are Environmental Geology/Earth Sciences courses available.

Some courses may be a bit more specialist - e.g. Petroleum Geology, Exploration Geology, Engineering Geology. Unless you are especially interested in taking this sort of route, it's probably better to go for a slightly broader subject, e.g. just straight Geology, and then find out what you really enjoy and pick option modules that reflect this, and then perhaps do a masters in a more specialist area.

There is a lot of overlap between the different geosciences. For a lot of places everyone in the department will take the same courses in first year (and often 2nd year), and you may find that they allow people to switch between the courses on offer in the first year.

Have a look on departmental websites. Most of them will give an overview of the different courses available (and may even give a complete module list), and explain the differences between them.

Another thing to look at is whether the course is accredited or not - list of accredited courses here. You could start by looking at this list. You could also look at what the entry requirements are for different courses as this could narrow down your options. Then with this shorter list just do some research looking over the different courses to see what takes your interest.

I will add that if you are looking for a career with a mixture of lab and field work then you are certainly looking at the right subject area :wink:

Different Geology Degrees

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you