 Is a geology degree worth it? That's what we're gonna be talking about today, but before we get into that, make sure to gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. On this channel, we talk about college degrees, careers, personal finance, and opportunities that are gonna lead you to success. And we also go over how you can avoid some of the common traps that so many people end up falling for. If that sounds like something that interests you and you haven't done it already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell so that you never miss out. Only 20% of you guys actually hit the subscribe button when you're watching my videos. So come on, those are some rookie numbers. Let's pump that up. So geology is the study of the surface of the earth and how that earth manifests itself in nature. Of course, you'll learn about the layers of the earth and it does focus on rocks, of course, on the surface of the earth. And this is one where it could lead to a lot of career opportunities that spend a lot of time outside. So if you're somebody who likes to spend a lot of time in the outdoors, then this might be a good one for you. Now, around 5,600 people graduate with a geology bachelor's degree every year. Now, one good thing about this degree, which is different than a lot of other science degrees, is that you might be able to get a job with just four years of school, with just a bachelor's degree. With a lot of science degrees, you won't be able to get your entry-level job with just a bachelor's. Nope, you're gonna need another one. That's right, you might have to get a master's degree or a doctorate just to be able to get your first entry-level job with a lot of different science-related degrees. Now, there's a lot of different career paths that you could potentially go down with a geology degree and I'll just mention a few of them here. Environmental scientists, geological and petroleum technician, hydrologist, and natural science manager. Now, the first section we're gonna go over, because this is a personal finance channel, is going to be the salary or earnings potential. Now, you might become a geoscientist, for instance, and they make around $92,000 a year with just a bachelor's degree. And when it comes to careers, you might be surprised to learn that you tend to make a lot more later on in your career, and that's especially true when it comes to geology degrees. So for instance, when you're in your late career, you'll be making almost twice as much as what you were making when you first started. With a geology degree, you can expect to make around $48,000 a year starting out and $89,000 in mid-career pay. Compare this to a very high-earning degree, like petroleum engineering, or a low-earning one, like recreational therapy. And you'll see there that it's on the higher side, definitely above average. So this one's above average, especially for a science degree, but it's nothing special compared to all other degrees. So I'm gonna go ahead and give this one a seven out of 10 for salary. Next, we're gonna talk about satisfaction, and I usually talk about job satisfaction and meaning. So when it comes to meaning, that is how much you think your career positively impacts the world. So you might hate your job, but at the end of the day, you know that you're really helping people, and so you know that it's positively impacting the rest of the world, which is a good thing. Whereas job satisfaction is just how much you enjoy doing your job. Depending on the person, one of them might be more important than the other. Now overall, satisfaction is extremely subjective, but I try to be as fair as I can when I'm talking about these. So for instance, a geology degree is gonna have a 55% meaning score with a high meaning score being radiation therapy at 91%, and a low meaning score being plastics engineering technology at 31. 55% is slightly above average. I would say that's about average for a science-related degree. Science degrees tend to have higher than average meaning scores, and so I'd say that one's about average or slightly above average. And when it comes to job satisfaction, you see that geoscientists have about a 72% job satisfaction score, and again, a low score would be 41%, and a high score would be 90%, and so 72% is above average as well. And like I said before, people who get a science degree and then they're able to actually get a job with just a bachelor's tend to be relatively satisfied with their careers. However, a lot of them are not able to get a job with just a bachelor's, and that's why science-related degrees come in as the second most regretted type of degree at around 35% of the people, over one third of the people who get the degree regretted. But overall, this one is above average. People who love science tend to really love science, especially the ones that want to work in a career in science, and so I'm gonna give this one a score of eight out of 10. Next, we're gonna be talking about demand. And going back to the career we were talking about before, which is geoscientists, they are gonna be growing at 5%, which is faster than average over the next 10 years. Now, one thing I'll say here about geology degrees is there's a very good chance that you're gonna be working in the natural gas industry. Now, the great thing about that is the natural gas industry tends to pay really well all across the board. Anywhere from entry-level jobs where you're just getting out of high school and you wanna work in labor, a lot of the time you're gonna get sent out to the middle of the ocean or the middle of nowhere where you probably don't wanna live, but you can make really good money right off the bat, all the way up to the highest paying degree out there, which is petroleum engineering. Now, unfortunately, the bad part about working in the natural gas industry is that it's very volatile. It's extremely unstable. People are gonna get fired when the economy goes down. There could be some kind of tax thing going on. We could get into a war, like we did back in the early 2000s, which caused oil prices to go up. All kinds of different weird things can happen which can disrupt the industry. Now, when you type in the keyword geologydegree onto monster.com, you'll see that around 1,280 jobs pop up. That means 1,280 job listings had the keyword geologydegree somewhere in the post. Compare that to computer science where over 141,000 did and then anthropology where only 829 did. So it's a little bit above anthropology, which isn't a great degree, but it's definitely nowhere near something like computer science. And that isn't a perfect test by any means, but when you see a really low number like that, it can be a little bit of a red flag. So with all that being said, I'm gonna go ahead and give this one a 6.5 out of 10 when it comes to demand. Next, we're gonna be talking about X factors. And this is gonna go over anything that we didn't mention before, but I think it's still important. Now, first of all, when you look at the census data, all college degrees and all different types of careers earn about $2.4 million throughout an entire lifetime. At least they have up to this point. Now, when you look at physical science degrees, which geology is a physical science, it earns around $2.6 million over an entire lifetime. That's gonna be a little bit above average. So that's a good thing. And you can see when you go down that depending on what type of career path you go into, you can make a lot more. So for instance, if you work with computers or you go into management, you'll make a whopping 3.4 million over a lifetime. And it seems like it's relatively good all the way down the list. And this tells you that it's a somewhat flexible degree. Now, in my opinion, science-related degrees, although they don't necessarily teach you specific skills that you can use in a lot of other jobs and occupations, they do teach you what are known as hard skills and soft skills that you can use indirectly in many cases to do really well in other types of careers. Science degrees in general are gonna be somewhat respected as well. So let's say you decide you don't wanna become a geologist, you wanna go down a different route, you apply to become a software developer or maybe you want to work in sales. It tends to be a more respected degree. So people might give you a chance even though it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the career you're going for. Now, another thing that's great about science-related careers is there's a very low likelihood that they're going to be replaced by robots. When it comes to automation and outsourcing, it's very difficult to automate or outsource any type of science-related career. You might be able to streamline the processes and have one person do the work of two people, something like that, but it's gonna be very difficult to completely replace them with robots. So that means that they're gonna be relatively future-proof. So even though geology is relatively flexible for a science-related degree, there's also a very good chance that you're gonna have to move somewhere in order to get your first job, especially if you're gonna be working in natural gas. There's a good chance you're gonna have to move to the middle of nowhere in some oil field or the middle of the ocean for many months at a time, so that's not necessarily good for everyone. If you're someone who has a family and you wanna stay close to them, that can be a pretty bad situation. And although a geology degree is gonna be relatively flexible for a science degree compared to all types of degrees, like for instance, compared to a business degree, it's not that flexible. The skill set that you learn is gonna be relatively narrow compared to an engineering degree, for instance, where the skills you learn can be applied to just about anything out there. So overall, when it comes to X factors, I'm gonna give this one a score of seven out of 10. So the pros here are gonna be that the satisfaction is relatively good. You might be able to actually get a job with a four-year degree, which is great, especially compared to all the other science degrees, or not all of them, but a lot of them. And the salary is gonna be fairly good, especially if you want to work in the natural gas industry. Cons here are that if you do work in the natural gas industry, you're gonna be in the middle of nowhere. The skill set that you learn is going to be relatively niche. You're gonna learn skills that are very specific to geology, and some of those skills might indirectly carry over to other careers, but probably not directly. And the natural gas is a very cyclical industry, so it might be really good for five or 10 years, and then really bad the next five or 10 years, and who knows what's gonna happen with electric cars and nuclear energy and all kinds of other stuff going on right now. So overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of 7.125 out of 10. So that's pretty good. As long as you do your research and you know exactly what you're getting yourself into, you have a plan, you know what careers you're going for, and then you talk to people who are in those careers, you're networking, you're learning skills, you're doing internships. I think if you do all those things the correct way, which I talk about in a lot of my videos, you should be okay. Now, if you do end up having to go to graduate school, the good thing about some of the science-related degrees is there's a good chance that you'll get some kind of fellowship or scholarship that'll pay for a lot of it. There's still gonna be a lot of time commitment, of course, but the good thing is this type of PhD, a lot of types of PhDs out there you have to pay for, but this particular one, there's a good chance that you can find a fellowship. It might also be a good idea for you to take extra classes, learn extra skills, maybe minor or double major, and something that would make your degree look a little bit better to a potential employer. Learning technology-related skills, mathematics, statistics, all of these sorts of things are going to help you out. As with a lot of careers out there, the toughest thing is to get your very first job out of college. Once you get two or three years of experience, it's gonna be much easier for you to get your second and third job, et cetera. And to help you with your research, if you wanna check out my Patreon down below, I have the college degree ranker version 1.1 at this point, but maybe by the time you see this, it'll be 1.2 or more. And this is a project I've been working super hard on, and in my opinion, I think it is the best resource if you're looking for college degrees. I've done lots of research and I've vetted all of the different statistics and the different numbers that you see all across the internet and I tried to combine them all into one chart that makes it super easy for you to read and I also ranked them. Now, it's not a finished product, but at this point, I think it's better than anything else out there. I'm also gonna be adding more stuff to the Patreon. There's gonna be exclusive content like I'm gonna be sharing my stock investing portfolio. So check that out down in the description if you're interested. And if you haven't done it already, go ahead and hit that like button, ring the notification bell, comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera. I forgot to say subscribe. You have to subscribe before you ring the notification bell and then share the video, of course. And before you leave, don't leave. Check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you.