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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Los Alamos field conference review
So this is mostly fot diamondcks ......
It was an okay conference - 119 geologists running around the Jemez, climbing up to look at rocks, debating geology, etc. The science was great. The best part was the whole day spent in Valles Caldera - we got ot go all over the place and see some cool rocks. But for me, I realized that the best decision I made in my career was to quit grad school 7 years ago. I do LOVE geology, but I am much more passionate about the application of geology and geologic scientific knowledge to public poliy. Science for the sake of science isn't my cup of tea. Most of the papers and posters were hard-core geology. There wasn't a lot of time spent looking at rocks - we went to a lot of overviews and then had 1-2 hours of papers. It was like bing at geological Society of America or American Geophysical Union and sitting in on too many papers/presentations. Plus, the NM geology community is a bit cliquey. lots of folks went to school together or know each other from projects they worked on - and that's not my professional sphere. So it was a bit odd. And volcanic rocks were never my favorite thing - limestone and karst and hydrology get me excited, not so much volcanics.
None of the hotels could really handle a group our size. We ended up having the dinner banquest split between 2 rooms. And parking was a complete pain.
Los Alamos was interesting. I don't remember the big gates being there before and having to pass through them. for work we usually go through White Rock and never hit LA. My friends house is up near Diamond and 40th street across form a park. We spent my doen town drinking wine on her porch and just relaxing. That was great.
It was an okay conference - 119 geologists running around the Jemez, climbing up to look at rocks, debating geology, etc. The science was great. The best part was the whole day spent in Valles Caldera - we got ot go all over the place and see some cool rocks. But for me, I realized that the best decision I made in my career was to quit grad school 7 years ago. I do LOVE geology, but I am much more passionate about the application of geology and geologic scientific knowledge to public poliy. Science for the sake of science isn't my cup of tea. Most of the papers and posters were hard-core geology. There wasn't a lot of time spent looking at rocks - we went to a lot of overviews and then had 1-2 hours of papers. It was like bing at geological Society of America or American Geophysical Union and sitting in on too many papers/presentations. Plus, the NM geology community is a bit cliquey. lots of folks went to school together or know each other from projects they worked on - and that's not my professional sphere. So it was a bit odd. And volcanic rocks were never my favorite thing - limestone and karst and hydrology get me excited, not so much volcanics.
None of the hotels could really handle a group our size. We ended up having the dinner banquest split between 2 rooms. And parking was a complete pain.
Los Alamos was interesting. I don't remember the big gates being there before and having to pass through them. for work we usually go through White Rock and never hit LA. My friends house is up near Diamond and 40th street across form a park. We spent my doen town drinking wine on her porch and just relaxing. That was great.
Re: Los Alamos field conference review
I'm glad that you had a few good days at the conference. Sorry it wasn't quite as great as you were expecting though. I understand about school, I've heard people with PhDs say that they wish they had stopped at a MS, it is a totally different job.
To bad about the banquet, I guess that is why we always go off the hill when we host conferences.
The guard gates have only been there for a year or so...
Good that you enjoyed visiting with your friend, sounds like the highlight of your week
I am glad that I went. I did make some good contacts and got to network. I know I used to feel very self conscious that I only have a BS and didn't finish my MS - that somehow I was a "fake" geologist. But now I realize I have my own skill set and knowledge base outside of geology that makes me very employable. It was funny - I got into a GIS discussion with some staff and profs from the Bureau of Geology down at NM Tech. And I really "got" geodatabases and the analysis capabilities for GIS more than they did. I joked that I was a geologist who spoke computer geek - which was one of my main job functions.
I like that quote, I'll have to remember it. Though I do know several people that are doing something very different than their graduate work, so there is hope
Good that you got to impress some people. I think past a certain point in your career BS vs MS just doesn't really matter anymore, experience takes over.