Less than 4 weeks of school are left. This semester has been a whirlwind of research and projects and field trips. I can barely catch my breath.
I have finished my research from Colorado. I presented it at a poster session today, and I am also presenting it at the Keck Geology Symposium on April 15. The map is awesome (if I do say so myself) and the calculations, well, we made them work. But, it's complete. I just need to have my thesis revised and get two signatures, then I'm good to go.
I have accepted an offer to grad school. I'm pretty excited to work in an actual geology department where there are rocks everywhere. I also know which classes I'm taking in the fall: Tectonics and Mineralogy. The description of the tectonics course: "Evolution of Earth’s lithosphere in context of plate tectonics theory. Formation of continents through comparative anatomy of mountain belts, including Appalachians, Alps, Urals, Caledonians, Cordillera, Andes, and Himalayas." That sounds so awesome! Much better than the classes I have been forced to take at GT (specifically field methods and data analysis).
On that note... field methods is probably the most irrelevant class I've had to take. And it requires the most work. It's so biased towards water chemistry that it's almost impossible to create a project in anything else.
The curriculum of this department is poorly organized. Some classes are duplicates of others. Some classes are irrelevant to some students. Basic classes (such as mineralogy) are missing. There is no excuse for these faults. Well, they do give an excuse, but it is a poor one: "We don't want to compete with UGA." Honestly, what does competing with UGA have to do with the course offerings? If a course is useful to the students in the department, it should be offered. If the course is required by all other comparable curricula and departments, it should be offered.
Then they suggest that students take the courses they don't offer at GT at GSU, which, yes GSU is right down the street and it does offer the courses, but the logistics are just wrong. I looked into this. The courses I needed to take (sedimentology and mineralogy) all conflicted with the classes I needed to take here (which are irrelevant to my interests, but required for graduation). It was impossible.
So now, I will have to take remedial courses in grad school to catch up. And I'll have to wait another year to take the siliciclastic petrogenesis class that sounds cool (if they offer it next year).
Now I just need to go to the gym so I can get in shape for field camp. I'd like to not die when I get there. Here's a link to the field camp:
