B.S in Geology.

College Majors Science Majors
1

Hello everyone,
I am a college student looking to transfer to Humboldt State University (HSU) for their Forestry BS with the wildland fire management option. I chose this because of wildland firefighting. My ideal career would be a type of job that involves being outdoors and not behind a desk in an office with decent amount of off time. Travel opportunities would be a plus. Wildland firefighting doesn’t come with much of travel opportunities but otherwise it fits me perfectly. Recently, however, I took geology and it has drawn me in very deep. My favorite subject in school is chemistry and geology contains a lot of that and it deals with the earth and nature.
I know that HSU has a good geology program with a decent amount of field work and I am thinking of changing majors but I have heard different things regarding the job market for geology majors. Based on some research I found out that the job market was bad around 7-8 years ago. Has that changed at all? And also in general, what types of jobs could I get that would mostly require being outdoors? If jobs like these require a masters then I’m open to that option as well. I just want to know what opportunities someone with a BS has vs someone with a masters and also the availability of those jobs.

Thanks!

2

I don’t have much credentials to reply to this (I am only in high school haha) but I too have looked into geology a lot as a possible major for myself. From my research and other people’s advise to me, I decided to steer clear of geology as it really depends on your location and the state of the economy. Right now oil prices are plummeting and a lot of geologists are jobless but when the prices go up, geologists have plenty of work. Those that work in government jobs are more stable but
A. Those jobs are hard to come by and
B. They do not get paid much.
Geology is very interesting to me and chemistry is my absolute favorite subject too but being a geologist today is very risky with rises in green alternatives and lower need for petroleum geologists. I have decided to go to school for materials science/engineering you should look into that. It’s alot of chemistry but it is more learning about solids and their properties (metals, polymers, ceramics, crystalline structures, biomaterials, etc). There is alot of opportunity with such a broad range of jobs. If you are set on rocks though and you live in texas or alaska go with geology.