The guide
Geology
Natural Sciences
Reading the physical history and structure of the earth from what rock, sediment and landscape actually show. You use that to explain, predict or find what lies beneath the surface.
This suits you if…
You want a science that gets you physically outdoors, reading a real landscape rather than a screen. Weeks away on a field course sound like the appealing part of the degree, not the cost of it.
Look elsewhere if…
You want to work close to home in a capital city. The largest employers, mining and oil and gas exploration, operate wherever the resource actually is, which is rarely a capital. Civil engineering keeps more of earth science's physical, structural interest while staying closer to cities.
What this subject actually is
You will also see it called
Earth Science · Geoscience · Earth and Planetary SciencesThe same subject, under a different department in a different country. Search for all of them.
What the first year is really made of
A residential field course is compulsory and formally assessed, unlike almost anything at school. That means a week or two camped near an outcrop with a hammer, a hand lens and a notebook, in whatever weather the location provides. It works as the subject's real entrance exam. Mapping exercises and structural mathematics follow in the lecture halls. Both are far easier to sit through once you know the trips themselves don't put you off.
The catch
Compulsory residential field courses run on the department's calendar, not yours, sometimes for weeks at a time and sometimes abroad. The largest employers of the discipline remain mining, oil and gas. Many applicants haven't pictured themselves working inside those industries.
What to do about it now
The school subjects that actually matter
- Chemistry or physics
- Mathematics
- Geography where offered
Where it leads
Kinds of work this opens
A list, not a prediction. Most people in these jobs did not study exactly this, and most people who study this end up doing something the list does not name.