Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences

Educational Opportunities and Events

DEEPS offers students opportunities for diverse learning opportunities beyond the classroom, including field trips, laboratory exercises, and special events.

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Educational Opportunities and Events

DEEPS offers students opportunities for diverse learning opportunities beyond the classroom, including field trips, laboratory exercises, and special events.

The department sponsors a two-day field trip every fall, and many courses offer field trips, laboratory exercises, and oral presentations/class discussions that enable students to engage with the course material in a group setting. Concentrators are encouraged to attend summer field courses and are offered some scholarship support for field course expenses.

Social events include spring and fall departmental picnics, holiday parties, and smaller gatherings (often at the homes of faculty members), DUG/GeoClub "movie" nights, an informal (but none-the-less competitive) softball and volleyball league, ultimate frisbee pick-up games, and ad-hoc lunch meetings on the GeoChem green.

Field Trips

Rain or shine, during the beginning of each academic year, the Department sponsors a weekend camping trip for Undergraduate and Graduate Students alike to view a variety of local, geologically significant, sites.

Several DEEPS courses require field research and thus take advantage of day trips and weekend camping trips in order to foster learning in the proper setting.

Undergraduates work to help raise money towards this annual event. Special expeditions have gone to the Florida Keys, the Grand Canyon-Meteor Crater, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. 

Special Seminars

Colloquia Series

The Colloquia Series is generally presented every Thursday afternoon at 4pm in MacMillan 115 during the academic year. Leading scientists from a variety of research institutions make up the pool of special guest speakers. These sessions are open to the public.

Lunch Bunch Series

Informal talks provide faculty and students the opportunity to present and discuss their current research over lunch. Each research area sponsors their own sessions which are held on a weekly basis. Photo: Students listen to a Planetary Geoscience Lunch Bunch presentation.

Thomas A. Mutch Lecture Series

The Thomas "Tim" Mutch Memorial Fund was established in '81 by family and friends, to honor Tim's memory as a scholar, GeoSci teacher, explorer, author, and administrator.

Professional Development Seminars

Several times a year, faculty panels are created to present such topics as diverse as "Preparing for Life after Brown" (resume writing, interviewing), and "The Funding of Science" (how grants work).

Student Research/Employment

Employment in a faculty member's lab (funded through grants) or independent research projects (often funded through UTRAs) during the academic year and/or summer might involve field work, laboratory experiments, computer simulations & data analysis. Students can also serve as Writing Fellows.

In addition to the employment opportunities listed above, there are also summer REU programs at other universities, SCA field work, science writing and other internships, and opportunities to work for environmental consulting firms.

Additional Opportunities