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30 August 2009
A new semester
For me, this means some welcome changes. As a result of earning an NSF Graduate Fellowship, I don’t have to TA this year, so I actually have more time to sit down and work on my own research (instead of spending a lot of time – including whole weekends at one point – just keeping up with grading). This also means that my committee has been encouraging me to take …
21 April 2009
Funding resources for geology graduate students
I have a bit of a plea for the geoblogosphere this week. I’ve volunteered to do some website work for the geology graduate student association here at UB, and one page is going to be dedicated to useful resources. I’m compiling a list of Earth science-related scholarships, grants and fellowships, and I want to make sure that I don’t miss anything. Can everyone have a look at what I’ve come …
13 April 2009
Just a little celebrating
I usually try to be modest, but I’m just so excited by this that I felt like posting:NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Awardees (Sorry for the repeat, folks who follow on Twitter – it’s only this once, I promise!) Not only am I the only applicant from UB that received an award, I beat out all the engineering, medical and life science applicants – and at UB, we have a lot …
15 September 2008
Anxiety
One of the things I least like about myself is my habit of getting very anxious and upset over odd things. Strangely enough, this doesn’t happen for big events – I’ve defended an undergrad thesis, presented a poster at a conference (and not in the undergrad section, either), started teaching intro geo labs, walked on hot lava, and (totally unrelated to geology), performed a Tchaikovsky symphony in a concert with …
30 August 2008
Questioning the system
Well, the Oreo activity hasn’t happened yet, but my first lab sessions didn’t totally freak me out, and none of the students walked out in disgust. I guess that means I’m doing well so far! (The first lab sessions are always hand-out-the-syllabus, anyway, which isn’t particularly strenuous.) I am questioning the general universe as to how I ended up with a Friday afternoon lab composed entirely of males, several of …
24 August 2008
Accretionary Wedge #12: Geology as a connector science
Hooray! I finally have both a working computer and internet connection. Definite cause for celebration, since I can now get back to blogging – at least as much as grad school allows, that is. Even more cause for celebration: This is post #100! I think it’s fitting that it should be an Accretionary Wedge entry, since at least part of the reason I started blogging was to connect with other …
15 April 2008
Technically they’re bison
Final decision is in, papers are signed in triplicate, faxed, emailed and overnighted, and it looks like I’ll be going to SUNY Buffalo in the fall. I want to thank everyone who offered me their advice over the past few days. I can be a remarkably insecure, nervous person when I have to make big decisions, and it was immensely reassuring to have people reinforce my gut feeling about the …
11 April 2008
Decisions
*Sigh* And here I was thinking my final choice of grad school was going to be easy. I have to choose between the city I loved with a good program (though I would be working on more petrology and geochem than volcanology), and the city that doesn’t thrill me, but with a great program (I would work on pyroclastic flows and volcanic hazards, which is exactly what I want to …
7 April 2008
They may have 9 months of snow a year, but Broomball is teh coolness!
Just back from visiting Houghton and the campus of Michigan Tech, which means I only have one more grad school visit before the big choice. It might be hard; I’ve met some really great people in the past two and heard about interesting prospects for MS projects. Turns out MT isn’t cold all the time – we just had three beautiful, sunny and fairly warm days, which I was once …
25 February 2008
Sleepless in Seattle
As promised, I have an update on my latest travel experience, which was out to Seattle to visit the University of Washington graduate school. Surprisingly enough, the weather was fantastic – clear for three days in a row and not even cold! I was quickly informed by the grad students that this was highly unusual and that I had, in fact, been secretly transported to an alternate universe version of …
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.