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Student at University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
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Edinburgh Geology/GeoScience Department reputation?

Hello,

I was wondering what the reputation of Edinburgh's Geology/GeoScience Department is in terms of research intensity, course difficulty and quality of teaching, on a national/European and international scale?

Also to those who have taken Geology at Edinburgh: How were the courses and teachers, in your opinion? Anything you really liked/disliked? How were your fellow students?

Many thanks! :biggrin:
FREDDON
Hello,

I was wondering what the reputation of Edinburgh's Geology/GeoScience Department is in terms of research intensity, course difficulty and quality of teaching, on a national/European and international scale?

Also to those who have taken Geology at Edinburgh: How were the courses and teachers, in your opinion? Anything you really liked/disliked? How were your fellow students?

Many thanks! :biggrin:

I'm doing a Geog degree, but have probably done more geology courses than geog so far - so I find the courses very enjoyable, there is plenty of diversity in what you want to study in the first two years and the first year courses give you a very good knowledge base to build on in the later years. Fellow students are great - especially in the courses that have Labs, you can really get to know people then. They seem to have a lot of fieldtrips too, quite a few to places in Scotland (incl. one to the Isle of Arran) and I've got a Geology friend who went to Jamaica this year! We just get to go to Bangor with Geog... woop!

Regarding the rating of the dept - I remember reading in the Times Good Uni guide '06 that Geology at Edinburgh was very highly regarded. I'm sure a bit of googling will get you the info you require.
Student at University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
Hello, I've just graduated in Geology and Physical Geography from Edinburgh, and thus spent a lot of time in the department!

It is a very highly regarded place, with the British Geological Survey next door, lots of research, loads of facitilies, with many of the staff very highly regarded themselves in their research fields... J Underhill and G Boulton for a start (have a look..). Not to mention it's the city of modern Geology as we know it (James Hutton etc.)

Courses are very well taught, friendly staff which are easy to talk to (not so much in first years, but as you go on you get more friendly, mainly due to smaller class sizes). Lots of field trips though, so if you ain't a fan of being outdoors and hiking up hills, then have a re think!

They teach you all you need to know, but I suggest that you have a real love for Geosciences, as you need the enthusiasm to stay to really get the most of it all...

Hope that helps
time to resuscitate this thread two year later:

how is the earth sciences department doing, how many students in each year, how large the lectures, how many hours lectures/labs/study, gender balance and collegiality among students, quality of faculty and generally is it fun?
Yipee earth sciences people :biggrin:
OK, first of all Earth sciences is doing amazingly well, the last RAE (Research Assessment Exercise), which assesses the quality of research at each uni ranked Earth Sciences at Edinburgh 1st in the UK in terms of the world leading research carried out. That's ahead of Cambridge and all the rest. So yeah, pretty damn good :smile: Link here: http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/research/ I know in Geography we're taught by some world renowned professors, like Andy Dugmore, Charles Withers (BSc, PhD, FBA, FRSE, FRGS, FRHistS, FRSA, M.Acad.Europaea, C.Geog, AcSS, haha sooo many letters after his name), Michael Summerfield (he wrote THE geomorphology textbook) and so on.

I am a Physical Geography student, but I know a few GPG (Geology and Physical Geography) students and our courses overlap to some extent. I would say Geosciences courses are generally more friendly than other courses, the labs (and especially the amazing fieldtrips) means you get to know people well and being outside in horizontal rain is a brilliant bonding experience haha. Definitely fun, how many other courses get fieldtrips overseas? I think Geology goes to Spain/Cyprus, and if you take Physical Geography you go to Iceland and climb all over glaciers and things. You don't get that with English Literature :P. Gender balance is very even, definitely more so than the humanities. 50/50 roughly, varies year to year.

In 1st/2nd year the lectures are pretty big, then in 3rd year you get to choose your honours options and chances are you'll be in a pretty small class apart from core courses. This is the time when you get to know professors and lecturers, 1st/2nd year is really just an introduction and classes are so big then they have no time to talk to everyone. Work load isn't too high, but there's a lot of self motivation involved, and a lot of reading. No spoon feeding basically, which some like and some don't.

My experience is that most students in Geosciences choose to study here because they are very passionate about the area, especially from 3rd year onwards, which is when the proper stuff kicks in. You need to like the outdoors, you need to have self-motivation. If you have these things, then this is definitely one of the best places to study earth sciences in the UK.

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