In junior year I finally figured out that competing with a gazzillion other physicists in the job market was not a good strategy. (In the ‘50s every high school science nerd wanted to be a physicist and build atomic bombs to nuke the Russkies.) So, I went into the Geology department. Geology is an interesting field because most of the evidence you need to make a decision is buried out of sight. To be successful requires a great deal of inductive and deductive logic, along with a lot of judgment and experience. There are no standards manuals for geologists to fall back on. Alas, nobody sends you to Paris to look at rocks. So, the downside of the profession is that you become intimately familiar with every swamp, jungle, tundra, and desert in the Free World.
True geology story. A June grad geologist was surveying an area for a mining company. He then switched jobs and left his field notebook behind. The company put the area on the back burner for a few years. Then it became a hot prospect again. The company geologists poured over the guy’s notebook. However, one entry, FRDK, kept popping up and they had no idea what it meant. They finally hired the guy to come back at consulting rates. When they asked what it meant, he replied, “Funny rock; don’t know.” It is a profession that I highly recommend.
I found myself on a field trip over Spring Break living outdoors in MA, NY, and PA. New to the outdoors, I was ill-prepared. My sleeping bag had no bottom because it was meant to be used with an air mattress that I didn’t have. So that was one of the more miserable fortnights I’ve spent outside the military. It didn’t help that it was snowing or sleeting rain every day. Fortunately, I had sacrificed extra clothing for two bottles of scotch in my knapsack.
I was having a quick pop one particularly miserable evening when the Prof came up to me and said, “Look, I know you are older than the rest of these kids…” It was a sophomore course and I was a junior who had returned to school after a flunk-out hiatus. But I still wasn’t within spitting distance of 21. So, I thought he was going to tell me to quit drinking.
But he kept maundering on about setting a good example and not being too obvious about it. Finally, it hit me about what he really wanted. “Sir, would you like a drink?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Even experienced geology professors can be miserable in some conditions.