Careers for Graduates with a Degree in Geology
Careers for graduates with a degree in geology ironically enough can be found all over, and under, the earth’s surface. While some careers for graduates with a degree in geology may require an advanced degree in a related field, there are many careers for graduates with just a bachelors degree in geology. With a world constantly in need of increased energy, mineral and water resources, graduates with a degree in geology will find opportunities in their field of study will be competitive but certainly available.
Government Jobs Taken together, the largest concentration of careers for graduates with a degree in geology is likely to be found within the many bureaus, agencies and departments of the United States government or comparable departments of state and municipal governments.
Within the United States Government, graduates with a degree in geology can find career opportunities in places as diverse as the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service as well as countless government offices in between. Graduates with a degree in geology, in fact, can locate careers in any government office that needs specialists who have studied the composition of the earth and the many processes it continually undergoes.
It should be no surprise then that graduates with a degree in geology can find careers with the Army Corps of Engineers or state agencies whenever a well is being drilled, a bridge is being designed or a highway is being rerouted. Whenever large scale action is being taken that will effect the land formation or will rely upon the stability of the land formation government agencies are likely to want a a graduate with a degree in geology on board to advise them of the safety and environmental issues involved in the proposed plan.
What is surprising is that graduates with a degree in geology are also wanted to fill careers in national parks across the country. If the graduate with a degree in geology enjoys working outdoors and instructing visitors in the history of the landforms around them there are career opportunities to be pursued in many national parks . Some national parks with outstanding geological features like Grand Canyon, Zion or Crater Lake national parks may employ a comparatively large number of graduates with a degree in geology but even smaller national parks have need of naturalists and park rangerswho can talk with authority about the history of the park and its evolving land forms. These are careers well suited to graduates with a degree in geology.
Private Industry In today’s energy driven world, the pressure for new sources of fuel seems only to be growing by leaps and bounds. Wealthy nations continue to place huge demands on existing resources while less developed nations try to break into the modern world by tapping reserves for their own use. In all of these efforts, there are many careers for graduates with a degree in geology. Employed by oil and natural gas conglomerates, graduates with a degree in geology put their education to use probing the earth’s surface, searching out new sources of gas and oil and helping engineers to safely extract what is discovered.
But there are other sources of power, energy and wealth as well. Geologist are employed by companies attempting to discover other natural resources. Graduates with a degree in geology can help industrialists determine the value of pursuing a mining interest by making an assessment of the value of its contents. Graduates with a degree in geology are also employed by industries that use water power and help to conduct studies that will keep industrial development safe and with in EPA guidelines.
Construction companies also offer careers to graduates with a degree in geology. Any companies whose business depends for its success upon the moving of large amounts of earth and rock needs the services of people professionally trained to determine the effect of such actions and to predict the long term results of major changes in a land area. These kinds of tasks are often passed along to graduates with a degree in geology.
Because of their pivotal position in industry, graduates with a degree in geology are often well payed for their expertise. On th down side travel may be involved and projects are seldom of the employees choosing.
Self Employed Consultant For those who choose to be on their own, select their own projects and move about at their own discretion working as a self employed consultant has a definite draw. Graduates with a degree in geology have knowledge in a very specific area but it is an area that effects many different types of projects. Geologists have a highly marketable skill. As with any other area of self employment, working as a geologist as a self employed consultant is not without its perils. There are certainly start up costs and down swings in the economy that one must be prepared to weather. But for those wanting to truly build their own career and work independently being a graduate with a degree in geology is a good place to begin.
Consulting jobs will take you into both the private and public domain. You may work for months on a government project only to find that next year’s work will take you into a private industrial board room. Both the government and private industry have need of graduates with a degree in geology and are willing to pay for services of those with good business credentials. All across the country there is soil to be tested, water sites to be inspected, land surveys to be completed. There are large projects and small but all require professional attention and the expertise that comes with holding a degree in geology.
Environmental Disasters Some of the more adventurous graduates with a degree in geology take themselves outside the main stream of geological careers and investigate the world of natural environmental disasters. These graduates with a degree in geology often specialize their study further and become seismologists, volcanologists, meteorologists and oceanographers. Their careers are based on the investigation of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis. They commit their knowledge of the earth surface to the task of discovering the underlying causes of natural disasters and learning how to predict their occurrence with the kind of accuracy that can save human lives.
Graduates with a degree in geology who choose this kind of investigative career surely have moments of excitement and confrontation with the forces of nature but they must also be prepared to do the less than exciting statistical recording and calculation that go with this type of work. Travel is likely to be involved and danger can also be on the docket but both are usually well compensated for in money and adventure.
Graduates with a degree in geology are likely to find that the total number of careers in their field will continue to rise as the world searches frantically for new sources of energy and ways to survive the disasters that our natural world, thrown out of whack by global warming, tends to produce with greater frequency. Knowing about the earth – what it is, how it came to be, how it will continue to alter – will likely continue to be the kind of expertise that governments and private industry will vie to employ.
