Most of the students in Geology are geologists. The rest are an amorphous gang of outdoor men, homeless physicists, Texans, and mountain-climbers.

The first group gets what it wants, in a heavy and tasty dose. For the others, Geology is never very oppressive and often a lot of fun, but three years of scratching rocks and drawing colored lines may seem rather aimless after gradation.

Geo majors, for all their fame as fresh-air lovers, spend an appalling amount of time in dank laboratories. Here they rub pebbles on porcelain streak plates, peer at crystals through dime-sized hand lenses, and drip hydrochloric acid on helpless limestones.

Scartch, Scratch

Fervent geologists enjoy their lab work as much as their field work. It is theoretically possible to graduate with only five or six outdoors trips, but most majors like to hike over the Auburndale esker or spend an afternoon chopping tillite at Squantum Beach, and call it schoolwork.

Harvard's Geology Department is easily one of the best in the country. Sparkling lecture artists like Kirkley F. Mather and Don Leet brighten up most of the classrooms, and the high ratio of teachers to students makes up for the missing tutorial.

A Gut for All

Almost everybody takes Geology 1, a pleasure for anyone and a gut for all but the most violent science-phobes. After that, a man's courses are pretty much set by the field of Geology he chooses to concentrate on.

He is required to take four courses in the Division of Geological Sciences, plus two courses in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, or Biology. Candidates for honors take one more Geology course and one more related course.

After graduation, a student can usually get a small job with a mining or oil company, or in the Civil Service. Higher-paying positions demand graduate work and a master's degree.

Incidentally, a lot of jobs in Geology are draft-deferred.