The main thing that drew me Southampton
was the NOC (National Oceanography Centre)
I looked around it with my Mum and it was just a beautiful campus, I just could see myself studying there.
The facilities were just amazing
we did sort of test practicals and that
kind of thing and it was just it was
just great. I just really enjoyed the
atmosphere and the space.
It's quite a small community so only the sort of
Earth Sciences study there.
The library's beautiful it's over three floors.
Because it's quite a small community you get to
know everyone that you pass every day.
The cafe is great, the food's amazing!
It's nice to feel you know comfortable in a
place because you recognise people it's
not unfamiliar. You know that there's
research going on, if someone's
found something exciting the
buzz goes around the lecturers and
one of them are put in a lecture and
that's it the students know as well.
Geology is kind of predominantly earth
sciences it's a very wide-ranging
subject, you study from
volcanoes, to earthquakes, to oil, to
environmental issues such as
nuclear waste and disposal and that
kind of thing. So really Geology
encompasses a very wide range of science
aspects, looking at the physical earth around you.
Throughout a geology degree,
field work is an essential part
because how can you study the world
around you without looking at it.
If a trip is compulsory so on a core module
it will be funded by the University you
just have to buy your own food.
And then in your first year the trips you go on
really teach you the basics of
geological field work whether it's
mapping or just general observation and
analysis of rock, what kind of things you
as a geologist you should be looking out for, that gives you the clues to what's going on around you
And then as you progress
through your degree you gets
got more and more exciting trips. So my
favourite trip was the Tenerife trip
which you take in third year as part of
a volcanics module and you spend the
week looking at all kinds of volcanic deposits.
My dream job would be an
Outreach Volcanology worker
you can study so much
with Geology lots of people,
obviously when you think Geology, lots of
people think 'oil industry' but it covers
environmental jobs as well and people
that have gone into looking at cleaning
up nuclear waste and other environmental problems. People go into renewable energy.
Looking at if you've got to
drill down into bedrocks to put
a wind turbine in then you need a
Geologist. There's also lots of
engineering geology, jobs things like,
if you're trying to cut a road
through a hillside, you need a
Geologist there, if you're trying to dig a tunnel
a Geologist will be there and then
there's obviously the kind of seismology
and looking at earthquakes and volcano
monitoring and that kind of thing.
