There was a Geology department alumni event yesterday at University of Rhode Island. We attended. here was some kind of career discussion event with quite good attendance. There was a panel of grads with long careers, and more scattered through the audience.

Seems like most people here are older, but some of you have kids or grandkids who might be interested...

Some interesting comments: someone who had just retired from a major oil company said the following things: they require a writing sample. If you can't write, you can't get a job with that company. Also, they say they have a floor of geophysicists in Houston where only Mandarin Chinese is spoken (for me, technical geophysics and mandarin Chinese is the same...joke...sort of). 40% of their geophysicists are from mainland China. They can't get enough Americans. This gut said he was kind of frustrated with how much time they have to spend getting Green cards. Starting salaries with Masters for Geophysics is over $100,000/yr.

Probably the same guy says there are only 3 universities training micropaleontologists who can work in petroleum industry.

Another interesting comment from another person is that it is important to be a good and pleasant person. They want people that you want to work with.

In fact, I went to France and to Turkey this summer in part because there are people I want to work with there. I will shoot down I95 to Lamont-Doherty Earth the week after next because there are people there I want to continue working with.

If I had said anything at the session, I would have said I will only work with people who are interested, who have had the classes Structural Geology and some kind of sedimentology and stratigraphy, and who can either write or know they can't write and are willing to work on it. I won't permit people to text/look at their smart phones while they are sitting with me in front of the computer. Or, if they do this, I'll avoid working with them.

Chris