Soon to be geology graduate

Hey everyone!

Like the title says I am about to finish my degree in geology and have started the job hunt. I would like to begin a career in Oil and Gas. Yes the money is a good incentive but honeslty the work life appeals to me and the industry is very interesting to me. I would like to work in industry for about 5 years then go back to get a masters degree in structural geology or geophysics. I've applied to ~8-10 mud logging positions here in Texas. I'm open to just about anything, but being almost 30 I do have a certain salary I need to make to stay afloat. I have a resume I can send for anyone to critique or if you know someone in a hiring position that can take a look at it and tell me where to improve. I'm willing to earn my own position and not looking for a hook up or reference. Just some direction of where to go. I have not recieved any phone calls back so I'm getting a bit nervous. This Monday, 4/22 will be the 10 day mark for my applications so I am going to reach out to companies and put a voice to the application and all that. Any help would be much appreciated!

 

Congratulations on the soon to be graduation! That ROCKS! (sorry couldn't help it)


Good luck on finding a position, I'm afraid I'm no help in that. But hey, free bump!

 

Loving the geology puns! They are they schist

Appreciate the bump!

 

You're probably in a good spot for O&G. I have a geology degree but work in environmental science. I'm relatively underpaid at the company I work for but I enjoy the work, environmental site assessments, soil and groundwater sampling, and natural resources work like wetland delineations and threatened/endagered species reviews. I'll likely go for my PG once I have the required work experience. I would suggest getting your GIT while your coursework is fresh in your mind, I wish I would have. Two years out of school and I haven't been motivated enough to test for it yet.

 

That's a good idea! I'll do that or focus on it once I get back from field camp this summer. Yeah I would enjoy that work too! But probably not as much. The groundwater stuff would be cool. As far as I've been told ground water has alot of similar techniques used as oil and gas

 

@essjay

 

Can't say I know too much about oil and gas, honestly. I pretty much exclusively do engineering geology and earthquake hazards.

edit: I agree with @rollin904 that you should get your GIT ASAP. It gets the ball rolling on the road to licensure, and, at the very least, looks good on a resume.

 

Try looking at the core analysis labs/service companies in Houston. Those pay similar to mudlogging and travel isn't quite as severe. It was a door opener for me, it gave me enough analytical chemistry experience to make the jump into the mining sector.

Wireline logging is worth looking at also.

Just keep applying, I might have applied to a hundred places when I was first out of school, it was surprising that the ones that interviewed were the places I didn't expect.

Edit: oh yeah, decent screen name, man

 

Thanks for the information guys. Got lucky and landed a mudlog job a week after field camp was done. I told them as long as they keep me busy for a year I'll stay with them before I start looking at the next step, which I hear geosteering is the way to operations geologist.

 

.....and all the time I thought it was gravitational pull.

 

So I'm always curious, where did your Field Camp take you? Mine was 6 weeks, kicked off at Big Bend NP, 2 mapping projects at Silver City NM, 2 projects in southern Utah, we were handed our grades and released in Moab. Best rowdiest 6 weeks of school ever.

 

the greatest bumper sticker I've ever seen was on the back of my friend's dad's car.. he's a long career geologist in oil & gas.

SUBDUCTION LEADS TO OROGENY

 

Environmental engineer here. I shared an office with a geologist for a few years before he headed back to school to get his PhD.

Just a few words of wisdom he gave to me that I'll share with you:
-He wished he picked a lighter hobby. He can't go for a hike without picking up a few rocks. In hindsight, he said we would rather collect leaves or feathers
-Be very good at ArcGIS and maps. That was his strength was all the mapping and data management devices
-Be familiar with the multitude of survey equipment such as Trimble Pathfinder and the remote sensing equipment like the EM sleds.
-He was amazing with Veris maps and using Unsat Chem too
-Love to be outdoors, hike, carry heavy loads because you'll be doing that the rest of your career
-If you want to be in O&G, you're gonna have to start in Houston. Once you have tenure, then you can make you call to head to the oil fields in California or Hawaii. If you mess up bad, they'll send you to Canada or South America
-Take advantage of all the free food in the cafeteria's at work to save money. If you're a geologist, you'll always be underpaid and any way to save money will help
-Don't forget to have a life outside of the office.
-Have a completely different hobby that doesn't involve outdoors or computers
-If you work for O&G, he states that drug testing was randomized and frequent, but you can almost guarantee a test after returning from a holiday weekend or vacation.

I'll add to this thread once I remember more words of wisdom.

 

Sounds dirty

But I know enough Geo and Enviro Engineers to know that it's totally dorky whatever it is.

 

That quote is hilarious!!! Lol field camp was in Las Vegas, NM. We did a metamorphic mapping project in the Picuris. Then a sedimentary mapping project on the Barnett ranch about 20 minutes from our hotel. Really cool experience. unfortunately it felt very watered down to help the kids in our class. The weak groups actually had video of the professor walking with them pointing significant things out and how to color them for the map. Made some of us that actually put in work mad. But hey, seeing as how I'm the only employed student so far I think its paying off hahaha!

Great advice man. I really appreciate it and will take all that I can!

 

Have you considered the Dakota’s? Winter is coming. Pennsylvania-Ohio starts out oily becomes mostly nat gas as you head east.

 

Nice. And well done. I've met some really awesome mudloggers in my time, and I've met some real dum-dums. The good ones usually move up to bigger better things.

I was on a job in Freeport years ago and had one call me into his trailer, he was excited that he found some decent calcite crystals in the cuttings and wanted a second pair of eyes to confirm. I told him I was pretty sure it wasn't calcite, it was halite. He asked how I could be so sure. I said "first, calcite doesn't produce a cubic crystal, second, your cuttings aren't reacting to the HCl drop test, and third, we are currently coring through a salt dome."

He wasn't the greatest of loggers. Don't be that guy.

 

Wildlife Bioligist here, endangered species, regulatory compliance, etc. ... similar to @rollin904, but I am very well paid now (10 years into career with my degree, 17 years experience overall).

I want to second @Bishop2Queens6, ArcGIS is crucial. I use it daily and it is one of the most important and heavily used technologies out there today that will continue to grow in importance as a valueable skillset. I know when my group hires other biologists, ArcGIS skills is always a factor.

Oh and FYI, you can get free 6 month trials by buying certain tutorial books put out by ESRI. On the side of my full time gig, I have a consulting company (wildlife research and conservation planning, just me, weekends and evenings). For the last 2 years I have bought 4 books to use ArcGIS at home for my side gig contracts. Program is a couple Gs, so I have not committed to buying it yet. So 50 bucks and you can have it for 6 months!

 

holy hell that's rough! That would definitely be someone from my class but wouldn't even be able to say its calcite! Dont even know enough to be wrong. But on that note I did see some calcite in a sample the other day.

 

Even found some free pyrite