I have recently changed majors in college, from History to Geology. How is the pay? Is it easy to find a job working mostly outside? Is it a “life on the road” type job? Anything else you can tell me?
I am not a geologist but you have to give us more info. Geology is usually one of those liberal arts and sciences degrees that you can do lots of things with from teaching to environmental research to working for an oil company. I have noticed that the latter tends to be one of the most lucrative professions you can have with just an undergraduate degree if that is a priority for you. Petroleum company geologists can make a lot of money. Things are obviously going to end up very differently if you use it to teach high school earth science.
Moved GQ --> IMHO.
I actually did the exact same thing you did-- went from history to geology and right now I’m doing oil well-site geology. I live in western Montana, but commute either to Wyoming, eastern Montana, or North Dakota anywhere between 3-6 weeks and am home for 2-3 weeks in between. It’s not really an outdoor job per se-- I set up some equipment at the start of a job and take it down at the end, but otherwise I’m only actually working outside if something breaks (and am usually not happy about it).
There’s sort of two aspects of my job. One is the old-fashioned “mud logger” job, where I look at samples and keep a log of what we’re drilling through (which is required by the state). But we also do “geosteering” which is where we figure out what the rocks are doing in the subsurface so the directional driller can keep us drilling in the formation we want to be in. The geosteering aspect can be really interesting (and really stressful when you’ve got no idea what’s going on down there and they want to know what to do with their multi-million dollar drill rig), but for the most part the job is pretty boring with a lot of drudgery and waiting. Most of the time I just sit in a trailer, clean and examine rock samples, crunch numbers, and do paperwork. Depending on the pace of drilling, some shifts I may only do about 2 hours of work and spend the other 10 basically goofing off (often spending way too much time reading the SDMB). I do work in a lot of very pretty places though, and we sometimes get on-site days off (like when they’re running cement casing) where we can go hiking or fishing or drinking or whatever you like to do (and still get paid our regular rate).
The pay is definitely very good for a job you can get with just an undergrad degree from a not especially prestigious university. Supposedly the first year (which includes some training time), we’re supposed to end up making around $60-70k, and once we get bumped up to lead geologist in a year or two it’s pretty easy to clear $100k. However, there is a boom going on right now and banking on the above still being the case in 10 or 15 years is a little iffy. Right now there’s so much demand that I’ve even run into people with things like English degrees who just sort of showed up at the right time and learned the ropes as they went. But in the future it could be that changes in economics or the labor market make it so they can be a bit choosier. A lot of the old-timers I know got started in the booms in the 70’s and 80’s, but had to work fast-food or construction during the late 80’s through early 2000’s when oil prices were low. If you really want to make a career of it (or get a job where you get to be home all the time), you definitely have to get on track for at least a masters’ degree, although it’s pretty hard to take a few years off to do that when you’re making over $100k!
And, again, the above would only apply if you’re talking about petroleum. Doing environmental or hydrology can also pay well but you’re definitely going to have to work harder to work your way in and up one of those fields, but they’re also probably less of a gamble to stake your career on. Hard rock (i.e. mining) geology jobs are also somewhat beholden to economics and the shrinking of that industry in this country, but those geologists skew really old and a lot of them are retiring without enough replacements coming out of schools, so there’s some demand there too.
I would like to tack a question on to this thread, if that’s OK. I majored in geology for three years in undergrad before switching to a different major, but took all of the core courses and did really well in them. Do you think I would be able to find any geology work with my background, or would I need to go back and get a Master’s or something?
Isn’t Goebabe still around?
I seem to remember this was her deal.
haven’t been a hard rock geologist for 13+ years, but from when I did it:
The pay was OK, but not that great - not as great as petroleum geologists make, anyway. But certainly better than a research geologist at a uni could bank.
Finding a job working mostly outside (exploration geology) was a question of both aptitude and seniority - generally, one worked for at least 5 years on a production mine before going off and trying exploration, unless one came at exploration from a PhD geophysics angle or did a lot of exploration work as part of being a research geologist. But a pure geology graduate had to put in some time before they could apply for exploration and be assured of getting in.
Generally exploration geologists cycle in and out of areas on rotation, but there was still a lot of office/lab/coreyard work involved, I’d say about 35% in the field, 65% at home for the exploration guys I knew (mostly doing African gold exploration).
Depending on what you took, you’d probably be able to go make some money up in some oil patch somewhere. The company I work for basically wants a new hire to have taken structural geology, a mapping course where they did cross-sections and some sort of sedimentology or sedimentary petrology. But you’d probably need at least a degree if not a masters to move up at all or be assured work if things cool off.
My minor work will be in civil engineering. I was hoping to work with large scale construction.
Then not so much “on the road” work as “on site” work. Expect to spend a lot of time core logging. Not sure how this is done elsewhere, but we usually did it outdoors (better light), sitting down.
I did do a little bit of geoengineering, a lot of stereo-photo work, some vibracore logging.
So long as the money is decent and the time away from home can be minimized within a few years.
I hear that a lot of geologists get off to a rocky start…
Well, jokes are certainly NOT what I was asking for. Are in the habit of joking in perfectly serious threads? Is that how you get your rocks off? 
It really depends where “home” is - you could be lucky and live somewhere where there’s a lot of work close by, or very far from any real geological work outside of small-scale contruction.
Home is wherever I live.
What’s the difference between geology and earth sciences? I’m applying to university and what to do geology. I researched the programs offered at these universities to become a geologist, and the choices are either earth sciences or geology. My question is what’s the difference between geology and earth sciences?
Dunno, without more details. Could you tell us what courses are required for the two different degree plans?
My brother works in oil geology and he says that things are looking good for the newcomers because there are going to be many retirements in the nearish future.
Earth sciences includes things like oceanography and meteorology as well as geology. But usually the terms are interchangable in terms of departments and degrees, so that an “earth science” degree at one school is the same thing as a “geology” degree at most schools. Some schools might offer an earth science degree as a more general alternative to a regular geology degree that allows you to delve more into the oceans and atmosphere instead of just focusing on traditional geology. Or they might call the traditional geology degree “earth science with an emphasis on geology” or something like that. You’re in the right ballpark either way, but if you want to become a working geologist you’ll want to make sure you’re taking more rock-centric classes if they do offer a more open earth sciences curriculum.
I see what you did there 