I have an important question for meteorologists

[rdale]

Francis - what is being explained to you is that those types of jobs do not exist. There isn't a crew of people who Vortex 2 keeps on standby ready for rollouts. You may find a job that allows you to do some research in the field, but there is none that lets you drive 8-5 M-F with holidays off and 3 weeks paid vacation for $50,000 a year.

 

[Shawn Schuman]

Francis - what is being explained to you is that those types of jobs do not exist. There isn't a crew of people who Vortex 2 keeps on standby ready for rollouts. You may find a job that allows you to do some research in the field, but there is none that lets you drive 8-5 M-F with holidays off and 3 weeks paid vacation for $50,000 a year.

If only..

But as I believe was said earlier in this thread, one of the better compromises you can make is to find a career that affords you flexibility. That could mean location independence, a flexible schedule, generous vacation time or something else that would allow you to chase as much as possible. For instance, I can generally take off on short notice any time of the year (with some exceptions) because a sizable part of my income comes from freelance writing. As long as I have my laptop and an internet connection, my income won't drop off much no matter where I am or how long I'm out. It may not be easy to find something like that depending on your field(s) of interest, but it's an idea. Failing that, you'd probably have to be extremely creative to find anything resembling what you're seeking. You can find a way to get paid for just about anything if you can figure out how to offer value commensurate with your desired salary, but I think you'd have a very hard time doing that in this field.

 

[James Gustina]

Start going to help sessions and office hours if you're struggling with physics. Despite what you hear coming into college, your professors don't want you to fail and will help if you ask. I'd also say this: I'm still currently enrolled in a meteorology program and I can't stress enough that you'll want to broaden your horizons a bit. Double major or even minor in something like GIS or computer science so you'll have more than just a degree in atmospheric science/meteorology to offer. Like Rob said above though, there aren't any jobs on the market that involve what you're talking about. The closest you could maybe get with that is working in a research firm (CIMMS, ARRC, etc), but those places tend to require a mastery of programming (C, C++, Perl, Python, and so on).