From the article: Geology and Home Life
Spending large amounts of time away from home may be an adventure, but what about the family? A young person asks, "I read that many geologists must be away from their families for a considerable amount of time. Did you get lonely often? How long were you away from your family? Is being away worth it?" Share Your Advice
Canadian geologist
- It definitely depends on which field you go into. Soft rock, aka Oil & Gas, will keep most people based in a major city with little time spent in the field (couple weeks tops for drilling). Hard rock, minerals & metals, much of your time will be spent in the field for either sampling, mapping or drilling (my best schedule so far has been 4 weeks on 1 week off, with work stopping for December & early January). Enviromental/Consulting will be ~50/50 between office and field labor. This will sometimes apply to mine site geo's as well. I will be the first to admit that it's unnerving being away from family and friends for so long; you miss a lot and people just don't update facebook enough to catch everything.
- —Guest Neil
Be prepared to be away from home
- My first job as a geologist was working in the field for mineral exploration. I was single and had no home. After getting my MS I worked in petroleum expl for 6 years and moved once. Then I had to move again to take a teaching job. 3 years ago I took early retirement from teaching and after 20 years away I am back in petroleum geology - as a mud logger. Great, I get paid to look at rocks and people make decisions based partly on my input - Utopia. Bad - I generally work 2-3 hours from where my wife and I live and I have been on this well 7 days/week for the past 72 days and we have from 2 weeks - 2 months to go. Having been married 26 years this is still not a good situation. My wife comes over once a month or so to visit me on my 12 hours off. Since mud logging is one of the 1st jobs a new geologst usually gets - be prepared. It isn't TDY in the military but it causes many divorces.
- —Guest Darryl Maddox
