Careers

Geology students typically have a wide variety of employment options, as their education prepares them for a diverse array of professional activities. A few examples include:

• environmental management and consulting
• hazard assessment
• oceanography
• climatology
• planetary exploration
• groundwater assessment and remediation
• environmental law
• mining and resource management
• teaching

In addition, to enhance their career choices many students continue their education by entering graduate school — sometimes after working for a few years — to pursue an advanced degree. Irrespective of the professional path they follow, geologists often rank near the top of the list among professionals satisfied with their careers. In part this is because so much of their work provides the opportunity to investigate the out-of-doors, but our view is that this satisfaction also derives from the healthy mixture of pure and applied science that characterizes so many of the tasks that geoscientists take on!