#Earth Sci/ Geol colleges
16 messages in this thread
Does anyone know of any 4 year colleges with a highly regarded Earth Science or
Geology program? I'm checking for my niece, any help would be
appreciated.
Dear George:
There are lots of good schools out West. Try looking into Oregon State U.,
U. of Washington, Stanford, UC Davis, U Nevada-Reno, Colorado School of Mines,
New Mexico Tech., U of Arizona.
Happy hunting, & good luck!
Scott M.
Thanks Scott. I should have been more clear; could you recommend east of the
Mississippi? I'm asking for my neice from Massachussetts and she doesn't want
to go too far.
George,
>> I should have been more clear; could you recommend east of the Mississippi?
I'm asking for my neice from Massachussetts and she doesn't want to go too far.
<<
That might rule out my thought. My alma mater, Marietta College in Marietta,
Ohio, has a very highly regarded Petroleum Engineering program. Since PE
involves a lot of geology, the geology department there is pretty good too.
Marietta is located in southeastern Ohio, about a hundred miles southwest of
Pittsburgh.
Does that sound like a possibility worth checking?
Jon W.
That is worth checking and I'll pass it on to my niece. Thanks Jon.
Dear George:
Re: good geology departments.
<<I should have been more clear; could you recommend east of the Mississippi?
I'm asking for my neice from Massachussetts>>
Well, in my own areas of interest (ore deposits, geochemistry), east of the
Mrs. Hip I'd recommend Harvard, Pennsylvania State, Dartmouth, U. Michigan (Ann
Arbor), maybe Michigan Tech (U.P.). There are a number of good Canadian
schools (i.e., Queen's in Ontario). Also Virginia Polytechnic has a good
department w/ some real cutting-edge people. I'm no real expert in the "soft
rock" side of things, but believe that the Indiana schools enjoy a good
reputation for stratigraphy, paleontology, sedimentology, etc.
Hope that this helps. If you are near a good library I'm sure that there
must be references available to aid in your perusal of university departments.
Again, good luck & happy hunting!
Cheers,
Scott M.
What specialty area of geology does she like? Most of the schools tend to
emphasize a specialty of geology (structural, hard rock, sed, strat, paleo,
etc) depending on who's on the faculty. This happen even at the undergrad
level. If she knows what she wants to study, pick the school that fits what
she wants to do. Most of the "name" state supported schools, that teach
geology for a major, have decent undergrad programs.
Jim
Check out Rutgers College. I loved it and it has a long history and well
established curriculum.
Bob,
I wasted the flower of my youth in New Brunswick, NJ, on the banks of the old
Raritan. Class of '75, somewhere in the upper Pleistocene.
When were you there?
Nathan
Natan,
Class of 1981, Rutgers College. Totally messed up my mind by double majoring
in Fine Art and Geology. Geology Dept. had the best celebrations on campus.
Did you take any courses in the Geology Dept. if you did you must have had Dr.
Fox.
Interested in your thoughts. Also need help defining objectives for young
earth science students.
Bob
Bob,
I was class of '75, Rutgers College. You may remember, from your history
courses, that Rutgers College went co-ed in 1971. As a result, I had a few
distractions from academia and my scientific interests. I started off as a
biology major, but I transferred to philosophy as an upper classman. I had a
serious love interest at Franklin and Marshall, so I never really got the lay
of the land in New Brunswick until I was in my junior year. Somehow, I managed
to squeak through Rutgers without taking a geology course. [Heavy Sighs.]
Only recently, while I was in New Brunswick for a trial call in the Middlesex
County Courthouse, did I have a chance to check out the geology and
paleontology museum on Old Queens. It has a good sampling of New Jersey
minerals, especially from the Watchung flows.
Now that I am an old man, I appreciate Rutgers a great deal more than when I
was a young snot. Whenever I am out driving with my children, and we pass
through New Brunswick, I stop on campus to give them the "lecture" about what a
good (and inexpensive) school Rutgers is, and how I met their mother on
Campbell 6. On the latter point, however, the children get the expurgated
version. In any event, they could do a lot worse than go to my alma mater. The
Science campus at Busch in particular is really impressive; it rivals Wisconsin
and Michigan for its depth of facilities.
Defining objectives for earth science (or other) students? I am sure, from
my own experience as a student and later as an instructor at the Law School,
that most students define their objectives or goals in terms of careers. Making
a living is very important, especially to the middle class kids who show up at
a state university, but fixation on this goal can ruin a college education.
Not only can it lead you to forgo the fun but it can also drive you into a
narrow path of course work to qualify you for a job. One of the truly neat
things about Rutgers, and most universities, is the breadth and depth of
learning in all departments. I have seen too many scientists who can't write
their way out of a paper bag, or even reason cogently outside their narrow
discipline as a result of a single minded determination to get into
professional school or get a job in a certain field. The goal of a university
is to produce educated people. These kids will have a life time to become
proficient and distinguish themselves in a career. They may never have the
leisure time again to read and study the great works of western civilization.
A pretty scary thought, and one that automatically suggests reordering a
student's priorities.
Nathan
You don't know what you got till it's gone, they say. I went to University of
Wisconsin-Madison. I walked past the Geology museum and department probably
twice a day, but I only visited the museum three or four times in a decade.
Only the last time I went did I sweet-talk my way behind the scenes to see the
bones-in-progress. At that point, I wasn't a student,and I'm sure I would've
had more luck and more time to explore when I was a free-wheeling student. So
what else did I miss at Madison? Have you visited there?
John,
Once upon a time, I was in the trenches, trying cases everyday in
Philadelphia, Media, Ebensberg, Camden, or New Brunswick. Then I was put out
to pasture, so to speak, and my work involved not so much trying the cases, but
developing the expert witnesses needed for a major piece of litigation in my
firm. So now I'm a travelling man.
Yes, I have been to Madison, recently. Unfortunately, it was a one day trip
so I didn't have time to poke around what looks like a really interesting
campus. My prospective interviews were only so-so, so I may not get back there
soon.
The week before Thanksgiving, I was in Denver, at the University of Colorado.
I took my hammer and chisel, but 10" of snow chilled my enthusiasm for climbing
the Table Mountains. I did make it to the Denver Museum of Natural History,
which has a fine mineral collection, especially of Colorado minerals.
Nathan
With the advent of the first snowstorm of the season, I hauled out my winter
coat. Cleaning out the pockets, I found a few fossils from my springtime
fossil expedition… snow? Snow? It's no obstacle. 🙂 Last winter, I
*waited* for a cold day to go exploring in an old quarry that's now filled with
water. The only way to explore the cliff walls is winter when it's frozen.
Next time you have spare time in Madison, send me an e-mail, we can tour the
geo museum together, and I can lead you to the geo library, too.
George,
There's an obscure school on the Charles River in Massachussetts. It used to
have a well known geology and mineralogy department, but I'm not sure what its
current status is. Harvard something. Columbia Univ. has had a good geology
department, but living in Morningside Heights in Manhattan is not for the weak
of heart. Rutgers College, which someone else recommended, and which is my
alma mater, is a strong state liberal arts and science school, with excellent
science facilities at its Busch Campus.
The Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, has prettier scenery and
skiing.
Nathan
There is another obscure college on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge
known as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The undergraduate program
in geology (known as Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences) is excellent
because there are only roughly five people in each class. The grad program is
much larger, so you get an awesome ratio of professors and TA's to undergrads.
MIT has a lot of cutting-edge research in everything from tectonic modeling to
deep-earth geochemistry.
Unfortunately, you have to be willing to put up with a ton of rigorous work.
Alex
(MIT '92)
p.s. perhaps your niece could think about the west some more too. The Colorado
and New Mexico school of mines are good. So is the University of Nevada, Reno.