Rose here –
Howdy! Today I want to share with you some of my journey to get to where I am in grad school. I am currently finishing up a master’s degree in geology, but I didn’t always plan on going to grad school, or even going into science.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, some of my favorite books were the ones on earthquakes and volcanoes, which were both very real geologic hazards in the area I lived. Someone gave me a book on identifying rocks and minerals and I started a rock collection with rocks I found down by the river or in my parent’s driveway. My grandpa loved rocks and geology and taught me how to identify various rocks and minerals and even pan for gold with sand and gravel he brought back from the Mojave desert in California.
However, by the time I got to high school I was struggling with algebra and higher level science classes and didn’t think I had what it takes to be a scientist. There were no high school level geology classes offered at that time and I didn’t even know that “geologist” was an actual job title. I discovered that I was really passionate about education and helping folks with special needs so I decided to go into special education.
After high school, I started at nearby Green River Community College (GRCC) so I could save money by still living at home. In the spring of my second year I had to take a science elective and ended up in Geology 101. I could write a whole post on how important geology classes at community colleges are, but I’ll save that for next time. This class quickly became my favorite class from my time at GRCC. The professor focused on how geology can be useful in our daily lives by framing each unit in terms of local geologic hazards to consider when buying a house or how to know what geologic processes have occurred when looking at a landscape. This made geology seem very interesting and relevant.
Now that I knew what geology was all about and what geologists do, I started seriously considering a career as a geologist. I loved the idea of studying the earth and the processes that formed it and are still shaping the landscape today. I especially loved learning about different hazards that affect people’s lives in different places in the world and how geologists can help prepare for and mitigate after disasters. The accelerated pace of college classes seemed to be what I needed to finally figure out higher level math, and I was actually enjoying my algebra and chemistry classes. I started paying attention to geology stories in the news and was in my professor’s office almost every day to talk about a recent earthquake or a cool rock I had found, etc. I decided to pursue a BS degree in geology after finishing at community college and looked into quite a few undergrad programs from Alaska to Ohio. I settled on Central Washington University, about an hour and a half from my childhood home, but on the other side of the Cascade Mountains so I got to experience a totally different type of climate and landscape. In the CWU geology department, every class that could had at least one field trip, and often more. There were good examples of almost every type of geologic process within a couple of hours of our university. I loved every class I took there and it seemed like every day was constantly reaffirming that this was where I was supposed to be. Even the informally dubbed “weed-out classes” I loved, which I was assured was the whole point: if you loved even the classes with 4 hour labs and 25+ hours of work outside of class time, slogging through all kinds of geology problems, then you were in the right spot.
When I was finishing up my bachelor’s degree and pondering what was next, I thought that I wanted to go to grad school, but not just yet. I had been in college for 5 years at that point and felt like I needed a little break. But then I attended a national Geological Society of America meeting in Vancouver, BC during the fall of my senior year. This is one of the biggest conferences for geologists every year, and there were scientists from all over the US and the world and from every branch of geology. I saw so many cool projects and was so inspired by all the interesting geology that I decided I wanted to be a part of that as soon as possible. When I got back I did some research and started sending e-mails to professors I was interested in working with. I didn’t get a single response to my first round of e-mails and was kind of discouraged. But I still really wanted to get in on some cool geology research so I sent out a second round of e-mails to completely different professors and heard back from all of them within a couple days! I was so excited to begin this journey and immediately started the application process, took the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), and waited eagerly for acceptance letters. I got in to two of the four schools I ended up applying to. I had a choice between living in Tennessee or Alabama, but decided I wanted to be closer to the Great Smoky Mountains (a dream destination since my childhood) so I went with Tennessee.
I moved to Knoxville and started my master’s in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I was prepared for an adventure, but even this one didn’t go the way I thought it would. My first project didn’t quite pan out the way I thought and I ended up switching projects and advisors toward the end of my first semester. This is way more common than you hear about…I have several other friends who switched advisors or projects as well. Sometimes it’s a personality or advising style issue, or sometimes the project itself is just not a good fit. The thing I had to keep reminding myself during this time was that it wasn’t a failure to change projects and not do what I thought I was going to, it just meant it wasn’t a good fit for me.
So I was on to my new project: contributing to a geologic map of a local area on Mars. Before starting this project, I didn’t know scientists even had the data to do geology on Mars! I was a little disappointed to not be doing field geology on Earth, but I thought this was a great opportunity to learn something new and expand my skills in geology and mapping. I discovered in undergrad that I loved mapping and structural geology (faults and earthquakes and how rocks move and deform). This project combined both by allowing me to map structural features on Mars and try to figure out a little about how they formed and contributed to the landscape in my study area. Throughout my time on this project I have come to appreciate the
I’ve been on this project for two and a half years now and I’m nearly done and thus began pondering again: what’s next? I applied to lots of jobs in geology or related fields and got only one phone interview. This is fairly common, but it’s still difficult not knowing what’s next. Then over Christmas break I remembered that in undergrad I had considered someday being a librarian. I am really passionate about reading and writing, about the community spaces libraries provide, about making information available and accessible to all. I had sort of pushed this idea to the side while pursuing my master’s in geology, as a “someday dream”. Now that I was almost done with my geology studies, I decided maybe “someday” was actually “now”. I did some research, talked to friends who were librarians, and sent more e-mails to professors. I ended up applying and being accepted to the Information Sciences program at UT to start in Fall 2018. I am so excited to explore the possibilities of combining my passion for geology and information: some potential jobs include positions at state geology libraries, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) library, national labs, or as a subject librarian at academic libraries.