2 January 2011
Geolutions and reflections for 2011
Posted by Jessica Ball
Happy New Year!
I tend not to make traditional resolutions (get fit, eat healthy, etc. etc.) because I know I’ll eventually forget about them, but I do like to make geolutions, or geologically-oriented plans for the new year. I thought I might list a few, as well as a few grad-school-related thoughts I’ve been mulling over in the past few weeks.
This year, I resolve to….
- Not fly through Chicago for any reason whatsoever if there is a snowflake within 100 miles of O’Hare or Midway. (Possibly also avoid San Francisco International as well; if you read any of my AGU updates, you’ll know that getting to and from the meeting was probably the worst travel experience I have ever had. And there was probably a way to avoid it, of course.)
- Start taking macro photos with my new phone, especially since you can do it easily with a hand lens. (I don’t have an Iphone, but I figure the trick should work just as well with my new LG. We’ll see!)
- Start reading the neglected books in my non-fiction collection, especially my as-yet untouched John McPhee compendium. (I know, bad me for not reading Assembling California before I went to AGU!)
- Enter a writing competition or two. (And hopefully I’ll be competing with some of my fellow geobloggers, hm?)
- Visit some new places in my adopted home state – and out of it.
- Go geocaching again (especially where I can complete some Earthcaches).
But seriously, the holidays have given me time to reflect on a number of things geological, especially graduate school. Conversations around this time of year are inevitably about catching up with what people have been doing, and in my case I’m usually saying something along the lines of “yes, I’m still in grad school and expect to be there for another couple of years”. Somehow, this always induces a mild case of panic for me – am I too slow? Am I really achieving what I’m supposed to? Is it bad that I have a few abstracts but no published articles yet? Timing-wise, I know (logically) that I’m not doing too bad. I knew when I switched to a PhD program that I wasn’t going to get done in four years; the scope of my research was too wide, and the field portion was limited by both logistics and timing (aka rainy season in Guatemala). I was able to wrap up a chunk of research and present it at AGU last month, and I’ve been devoting a bit of my break to working on the chapter of my dissertation that deals with it. I have the advantage of being self-funded (for now), with the option of TA-ing again later if I have to, so I’m not panicked about the money side of it, at least.
But I still often feel like I’m behind the game academically. The theoretical side of my research involves modeling, and I am not a programmer, engineer or mathematician, having decided to major in geology and minor in archaeology in college. Had I known that I was going to be embarking on this research, of course, I would have taken more math and maybe some engineering courses as an undergrad. But there was no way to know that I would need them, since I wasn’t even entirely sure that I was going to be headed for grad school back then. And it’s difficult to suddenly acquire a whole bunch of skills unrelated to your major, especially when you’re starting graduate school without having taken many classes in your primary area of study (in my case, volcanology). Sometimes I get really discouraged, because I feel like I’m expected to have a background that I’m still working on building. My committee did approve my dissertation proposal, so (I hope) they must have felt I could handle the work it involved, but there are days when I question whether I’m really equal to the task.
It’s hard to be emotionally distanced from something that you put so much effort into, but I think that will have to be one of my main goals for this year. I’ll just have to keep plugging away, plan my time as well as I can, take whatever classes I can fit in (fluid dynamics and maybe some more thermodynamics this semester, hooray), and try not to get too discouraged over it. And maybe throw in a field trip or two to keep from going stir-crazy. Montserrat looks nice this time of year…
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.
Bancroft is a real kick in the pants… incredible rocks, incredibler minerals. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in that part of Ontario; the shield is wonderful, but Bancroft is definitely a highlight. There are some komattites a bit south of Cobalt, for some exotic volcanics.
We’ll probably hit them! I intend to tag along with the undergrad petrology field trip to Bancroft this year, since I’ve missed it the past two years.
Buffalo must have response to snowstorms down to a science, so methinks you’re a bit spoiled by it ^_^
You’re younger than I am and ahead of me in the academic realm, and I’m not nearly as discouraged as you appear to be in the second-to-last paragraph. I don’t think there is ever a need to rush things when you can spend your time in the journey of further knowledge and application of that knowledge. I would kill to be where you are in those terms.
I wish I didn’t sound so discouraged! I would be perfectly happy not to rush through grad school, but it does come down to the expectations of your committee and funding issues; if you’ve hit the point where you have no more funding, you’re either searching constantly for more, or you have to buckle down and finish. (Plus at some point your committee – and the grad school – is going to tell you to finish up.) I’m nowhere near that point yet, but I do go through occasional maudlin periods of being afraid I won’t get there. Mostly, I wrote the post to let other grads who might be struggling know that they’re not the only ones who have doubts.
And yes, we are a bit spoiled when it comes down to snowstorms, although we haven’t had any horrible ones since I moved to Buffalo. I will also admit that I should not have tried to book anything through Chicago in December. But on the SF side of it, I have real issues when I have to stand in line for multiple hours because of fog and rain, which if I’m not mistaken is fairly common in San Francisco. Will perhaps try Oakland next year…
And hey, congrats on starting a blog – and neat first post! Good luck with the writing; it’s very rewarding, and occasionally (as you saw) nicely cathartic.
I try to avoid O’Hare airport always (still have nightmares of traveling with husband, two youngish children, a mound of luggage, and having to get from one terminal to another). We were at AGU and for the first time in 3 years, it didn’t snow in NJ while we were gone (last year we were delayed due to snow). Except for the fact that the planes seem to have shrunk, traveling wasn’t too bad. (Well, we were delayed getting to SF because the plane was late getting to Newark and the crew was late arriving from somewhere else.)
Good luck with your studies — I’m sure you’re doing great. And I love the descriptor in your bio (learning how to safely & productively play with hot rocks). I’m married to a geologist who teaches high school earth science and teaches teachers how to teach earth science.
Grad school is stressful for almost everyone, I think. You’ll be fine! I’m about a year ahead of you (I think), and I haven’t published yet either. I am about to submit my first paper, though (fingers crossed) and will hopefully have a second one submitted before I defend my thesis.
I used to really stress about publishing, but one day I just decided to relax about it. In my program, you don’t have to publish anything to graduate– though of course it’s good and helps with jobs & postdocs. Several recent students didn’t have any of their chapters published when they defended. They were fine- they even got postdocs! And, eventually, they published. Once I decided to relax a little about publishing, my first manuscript really started to come together!
Part of my problem was that I switched advisors and then my new advisor left for a different institution. I’m now on a third advisor (still co-advised by the second advisor), but all the switching around has made my thesis progress (and papers) go more slowly than I would have liked.
Frustrating, but many other students have problems: delayed research trips or cruises, advisor switches, family problems. The advisor of a friend of mine died of cancer– that was probably the worst situation imaginable, but she graduated with a masters and is now happily working on a PhD at a different institution.
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck! I’m sure that you’ll do great. Just stick with it.
Thanks for your kind – and reassuring! – comment. I do plan to keep plugging away, but it’s always great to hear from other people and get a little perspective on the whole thing. (It sounds like you’ve persevered through some much rougher stuff than I’ve been dealing with, and kudos on that.) I’ve been enjoying your blog, by the way – you seem to travel to some really fascinating places.
Check the McPhee compendium off your list as soon as possible. It is amazing! And good luck this semester!
Thanks! I plan to get started on that as soon as I exhaust my library books. Hope your year starts off well also!
“Mostly, I wrote the post to let other grads who might be struggling know that they’re not the only ones who have doubts.” — Thank you. I am struggling too, but your words are reassuring.
Jessica – Grad school can definitely be a chore to get through with all your self confidence intact, but as others have said stick to it, the rewards (not necessarily financially) will be worth it for you. I think the whole process inevitably induces isolation of different sorts as you realize it’s tough to get others to empathize or be sympathetic with the difficulties of your specific path and work. But there are milestones to reach and surpass to the ultimate end of this phase. One at a time.
As far as upstate NY, check out, when you get an opportunity, the pillow basalt in the M. Ordovician Snake Hill Shale at Stark’s Knob around Schulyerville in eastern NY (http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/classes/RWA/EAS_210_new/photos/hudson_valley_area/starks_knob/); or some interesting igneous rocks in the lowland Adirondacks between Gouverneur and Colton in Jefferson Co.
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/26736/
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/26684/
and also this, near Alex Bay: http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/26713/