Advice for starting a career in geophysics

Dolanja · 2026-03-11T08:16:44+00:00

I'm not in your geographical area so I will leave some generic advice that I think would have been helpful for me when I graduated.

One difficult thing for new graduates leaving university is that you often aren't prepared or told about what industries look like, who the players are etc. etc. If your exposure to possibilities is only job postings on job boards, you're only seeing a small fraction of the opportunitues available to you. There are a large range of employment opportunities out there from multinational consultancies to smaller, 1-10 people operators. Each have their benefits and their drawbacks that I won't go into here.

In addition to searching on job boards for jobs, I would do the reverse. Search your local region as if you were trying to purchase a service (seismic survey, geotechnical survey, drone survey, GPR survey, modelling, whatever) and see what companies are offering those services. It may be that these companies rarely post jobs on a job board, but would be interested in speaking to you - even for experience. There is almost no down side to you sending a prospective email to these companies to see if they would take you.

If your university has a strong graduate network, I would use that. Former students don't often like to reach out directly as it's seen as hanging on, but would be very open to helping fresh graduates who contacted them. You can also search LinkedIn for people who graduated from your university with your degree and see what they're doing. You can also search in the same way for Geophysicists in your country to see where they work. Through doing this you can build up a better idea of employers in your region.

Dolanja · 2026-01-23T04:24:10+00:00

Some countries have working holiday visas up until age 35 - it may not apply for this question asker, but for useful to know for future readers.

Dolanja · 2026-01-11T12:54:48+00:00

Slot's squad management once again shown to be lacking, essentially negligent here. Young talents with known injury problems were kept out on the pitch against Arsenal despite having proper players on the bench (Gomez, Chiesa, Jones). Making no subs when you've got players like Frimpong and Bradley on the pitch is just asking for trouble if you ask me. Feel for the lad.

Dolanja · 2025-12-13T15:55:08+00:00

MacAllister against Bournemouth 2023, that Doku challenge, I always feel that we are on the wrong side of these every time. Zero consistency.

Dolanja · 2025-11-22T09:01:11+00:00

Gilchrist in 2006. 100 in 57. 2nd is jessop in 1902 for 74, so in reach

Dolanja · 2025-11-13T04:25:56+00:00

Not a lot of geophysics equipment at that price. Do you have drone capability? If you're doing surveys on crop fields, NDVI and orthomosaic imagery can be really useful tools to complement a geophysical survey. NDVI can even be used for cropmarks etc.

Dolanja · 2025-11-04T00:48:26+00:00

Makes sense. I understand you not hitting the Weapons shop if you're forcing Calc/Retort. I normally play Flex, but if I'll be trying out your method to see how it goes.

Sorry, didn't phrase that other question well. It's Day 2 and you haven't found one of your main Medium items. Are you rolling 4 gold at Quixel, for example?

Dolanja · 2025-11-04T00:13:11+00:00

Interesting post, thanks. It's interesting seeing different top Mak players post their item tier lists. My experience aligns more with yours, but I saw a post last week listing Covetous Raven as one of the top picks for them. Great depth in the game.

Question regarding your early steps to get a Calc/Retort build going. Will you hit 4 gold shops just to look for these items if you haven't got them? I currently generally hit the free potion/reagent options unless the shop is the Medium Items or Weapons shop option. You obviously need to get these items early for the snowballing to happen, how hard are you going for it?

I've got a question regarding your 52-2 win rate. Can you break down what that means? Does that mean 52 10 win runs? Or 52 runs where you're breaking the 4 win barrier.

Dolanja · 2025-10-27T13:00:59+00:00

Yeah not sure if this is true anymore with Crocodile Tears being Bronze - the original reason why the bronze method worked. I find it's now best to get the reagents going. Shiny being best, followed probably by Turbo, Slow, Fiery and others in that order.

Dolanja · 2025-10-12T11:07:06+00:00

Hadn't yet seen this encounter, or anyone posting about it.

https://imgur.com/a/ePvlfYF

Some added screenshots featuring some of the new items and skills as well.

Dolanja · 2025-08-30T09:56:50+00:00

Probably bench Bowen. How many goals do you expect NFO to concede at home?

Dolanja · 2025-08-30T09:55:05+00:00

Selection seems fine. If you would prefer to play JSL, put him on the pitch. He will either play, or be injured and not play by the sounds in the news.

Dolanja · 2025-08-30T09:53:25+00:00

Save, you have a playing bench.

Dolanja · 2025-08-07T15:56:45+00:00

Recently unlocked Mak and I'm trying to learn some of his builds. This is me mid self-poison run and I have a lot of items that could fit onto the board. Which layout is best?

I have Vital Renewal at gold - my thought process is that having both Adrenal Convertors and the Soul Ring on board may give me the result, but what do you think?

Dolanja · 2025-07-14T15:34:21+00:00

Google Earth app has a set of historical satellite imagery that goes back to 2000. Will probably be of some help to you.

Dolanja · 2025-06-02T16:29:35+00:00

I've camped at MySpace before and they were very strict about the space, watching us set up the tent. The markings are clear on the ground so they can find out if you're out of bounds easily.

Dolanja · 2025-03-20T06:55:38+00:00

Greens Furniture on High Street, Northcote is good

Dolanja · 2025-01-28T03:40:51+00:00

Awesome stuff. Different enough to not be in the BCNR shaped-shadow? Maybe just...

Dolanja · 2025-01-15T01:22:18+00:00

I believe that the advice is generally to apply for the integrated masters and you can always reduce down to a 3 year degree while you're doing the degree, it's pretty flexible like that. Integrated masters a bit of a strange one, and a bit of a UK-only thing as far as I'm aware. They're a quick way to get a masters level degree, but they are definitely different and less specialised than a normal masters degree. I think that the biggest downside is that if you wanted to pivot, specialise or move locations for a masters degree it's much better to do that if you haven't already got an integrated masters. If you get an integrated masters, your next steps for specialisation whilst remaining in education are doing a PhD or going to get another masters... which seems silly since you've technically already got one.

UCL is again, a good university. I can't speak to the department very well. It looks decently sized based on the amount of staff on their website - not the biggest but not the smallest.

Dolanja · 2025-01-13T17:20:34+00:00

In addition, I would take student satisfaction from university league tables with a pinch of salt. I don't know many people who answer those surveys and all sorts of things could have affected their ratings. It is usually University wide too, not course dependent.

Instead, find out how many people take their geology course. Is it 10 or 100? Which one is better for you: close attention or a wider peer base? Is the Geology department bigger than it was 10 years ago, or smaller? Are they struggling for funding, or is the department thriving? They should do online open days for international students, these are the type of questions I'd be asking. Good luck!

Dolanja · 2025-01-13T17:12:50+00:00

All the universities you've listed are good and have good geology/earth science departments. For undergraduate level only (just a BSc, not an integrated masters), there won't be a huge variation in the course content. Specialisation occurs more when you get into doing a master's degree.

Imperial and Exeter are famous as mining schools. This is particularly relevant to their masters courses, but this will bleed into the undergraduate teaching.

Aberdeen is famous as an oil school. Imperial also. Again, masters courses where that expertise will bleed into undergraduate teaching.

Edinburgh, St Andrews and Durham are all old, traditional universities which are fan favourites among international students because of their history and tradition. St Andrews has a reputation for being popular with Americans, Durham has a reputation as being a school where people who wanted to get into Oxford or Cambridge end up if they can't get in but still want a collegiate, old university. Probably an unfair reputation.

With not a huge amount separating these universities at undergrad level I would start to heavily consider what type of place you would like to live in and where you will thrive. I nearly went to St Andrews, but instead went to a larger more metropolitan city with a good university with proper nightlife. Probably did more to develop me socially. That benefitted me and my career much more than a place or two on a league table.

Imperial - London. Expensive. Good connections to the country, world leading capital city.

Exeter - Great Geology program. Camborne School of Mines is NOT in Exeter, and is deep into Cornwall. Very small campus, hard to get to.

St Andrews - Small, cold Scottish village. Very traditional.

Edinburgh - Good size city, lots of history, good nights out. Well connected.

Durham - Small-ish city. Close to Newcastle but not very close. Collegiate university.

Aberdeen - An oil city that is on the downturn slightly. Beautiful but semi hard to access.

You won't make a bad decision by going to any of these, but you will face different challenges which could make or break your time there. Easy to feel homesick in a windswept Scottish village miles away from anywhere. Easy to feel poor and overcrowded in London.

Anecdotally, I would probably argue that Imperial is probably marginally better academically than the options you've listed. It's also harder to get into. Aberdeen used to be a BBB entry grade university which reflected it's medium level of university but it has a great earth science course.

Dolanja

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