MS IN APPLIED GEOSCIENCES:
Meteorology and Oceanography
MS IN APPLIED GEOSCIENCES: Meteorology and Oceanography |
Program Constraints
All prospective applicants should consider their goals in the light of the mission of the MS in Applied Geosciences. The program is designed to be flexible. This allows us to customize the student's Graduate Approved Program (GAP) to encompass some non-traditional employment goals and training that might be more interdisciplinary.
Often the prospective applicant has an expectation that his or her research area might be in an area of meteorology or oceanography, for example, in the core areas of physical, dynamic and/or synoptic meteorology or the various core areas of oceanography, or areas in which background in all of these fields is required, such as meteorology of the oceans, severe weather meteorology, global change meteorology etc. In other cases, such a student has decided to make a career change and wants to explore professional meteorology or oceanography as part of that evolution. In both of these cases, students have an expectation that, once received, the MS in Applied Geosciences will also certify that the student is a "meteorologist" or an "oceanographer." These students should be aware that considerable extra coursework would have to be completed before they could complete the degree.
For example, all applicants whose expectation for the MS degree is to come out the other end as a meteorologist WITH special background in certain specific areas (such as, severe weather or global change) should plan on having completed (or plan to take) the coursework set by the American Meteorological Society as minimum for professional meteorologists. The Department of Geosciences' BS in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences was designed on the basis of these requirements. In essence, such Conditionally Classified students would be expected to take Metr 200/201/206/301/401/402/403/404/406/502/503 before being entered into Classified status.
In addition, the applicant should note that "options" in the BS for graduate school AND other thematic areas have been defined. In order to do graduate work in one of these areas of meteorological and oceanographic research, students would need to have completed the coursework required by our own BS (or by a BS in Meteorology from another institution). As a matter of information, all the graduate coursework in meteorology has a prerequisite of upper division majors core coursework, so, by definition, the applicant must have these courses (or their equivalents) on their transcripts before embarking on a thesis project.
Entrance Classification Options
Applicants for the MS in Applied Geosciences: Meteorology or Oceanography meeting general university and Department of Geosciences requirements will be evaluated on the bases of their transcripts. If the application is approved by the university and the Department, applicants will be entered either as "Classified" or "Conditionally Classified" students. "Classified" status means that the student is ready to embark on a graduate program and, as soon as possible, a thesis project. "Conditionally Classified" status means that the student has inadequate background, but is being welcomed into the program. The "condition" that needs to be fulfilled in order for the student to be advanced to "Classified" status will be for him/her to make up the deficiencies in their background, as defined above. This will be different for each student.
Graduation Timeline for Students
As an example, students who have a goal of emerging from the MS as a professional meteorologist, but who have no background in mathematics, physics or majors-level meteorology courses may need to take the equivalent of the entire undergraduate program. Such a student should plan on spending an extra two to three years before embarking on graduate-level work and formulating a thesis project. Students with nearly adequate background will need to plan on spending less extra time, perhaps as little as one year or less extra.
Once advanced to Classified status, students will define an area of research interest. This area MUST be defined under advisement of the faculty. In particular, the research area of the student must generally conform to the research interests of the faculty member chosen to serve as primary or thesis advisor. Applicants are recommended to evaluate the research areas of the three meteorologists (Profs. Dempsey, Garcia and Monteverdi) and/or the two oceanographers (Profs. Garfield and Seibel) to make certain that their own interests mesh with those of at least one of the faculty members. Incoming students with adequate background in undergraduate coursework should plan on about three years from their entrance into the program to the receipt of the MS.
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