Other Natural Science Majors and Pathways...

[Brendon Lindsey]

My name is Brendon Lindsey and live here in N. Oklahoma. I have always chased severe weather and loved every bit of it. I spend most of my days dreaming and hoping the next system to come through the plains will bring some action. Since a kid, I was addicted to the weather channel and what not always wanting to be a meteorologist. I am now a graduating Senior and Signed to go to college at Northeastern University in NE OK. I have recently given up on my dream to continue onto a Met Deg. To much math haha... lazy. Not really lazy but just rather not do so much physics and what not.

My question is what other majors out there have you meteorologists had interest in? I am a very profound photographer and currently looking into photojournalism... (can cover severe weather =)... ). Geology, land surveying, hydrology, nature type things, interest me. I was daydreaming the other day hah and thought about being the guy who gathers information to make topographical maps... that would be fun. But soon realized that satellites probably take care of that now =/ . Along those lines what careers or majors are out there that interest you? What route would you have taken if it hadn't been Meteorology or whatever it is that you took.

Thanks,
Brendon Lindsey
www.stormaddiction.com

 

[Heather Moser]

I don't know if I'm allowed to answer this, but I'll give it a shot. If you love maps and are not so fond of physics and calculus, I'd recommend something like geography. A friend of mine majored in meteorology but ended up going to graduate school in geography because his true passion was in the visual side of the science (reading maps and analyzing patterns) rather than the theory and equations.

People do still go out and conduct field surveys for data rather than relying on remote sensing (satellites) alone. I'm not sure about topographic maps, but geologists do field work to create soil maps for the NRCS. Good luck!

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

I started out as a Meteorology major, but quickly aborted after my Freshman year. It wasn't the Math as much as the Spanish, (for some stupid reason UNL required 4 semesters foregin language), really though, thats not why I changed my major, I just quickly realized my only real interest in weather was and is Severe Weather, and at least at UNL, that is by no means the focus of the their program, and I really don't want to do research type work, and TV isn't really for me. So I changed to Natural Resource and Environmental Economics, which was a perfect fit, (once I learned to get past the plethora of Hippies), it combines my interest in the Natural Sciences, with my interest and bussiness geared mind. Its a decent major to have this day and age as well, it leads to many different positions with federal and state agenices, as well as many private organizations, you can do GIS work, even study the economic impacts of weather events, ext, ext... I already have a job lined up this summer, surveying and mapping out irrigation wells and groundwater levels for one of NE's NRD's, and just browsing the local news paper job listings, I don't think I'll have too difficult of a time finding a decent full time position after I graduate in August.

 

[Chris Bowman]

Brendon, I was a lot like you growing up in western PA. Loved severe weather and watched the weather channel incessantly. If you'd ask my parents they'd say I was watching the weather since before I can remember. So it came as no surprise that I wanted to become a meteorologist. I kind of took an indirect path towards that goal. I started out at the University of Pittsburgh doing geology with the thoughts that I would later get a masters somewhere that had a meteorology program. I can honestly say geology was not the path I want to go down so I transfered. Not trying to offend and geologists out there but looks at rocks, I mean really studying them, was one of the most boring things I have ever done. So I decided to head west into the Plains and the University of Nebraska fit my requirements. Like Dustin said UNL requires 4 semesters of a foreign language. I had three years of French coming out of high school so to reach my goal I had to do it. I am positive if I had gone through another major I would be miserable so it was sort of few years of pain for long term gain.