2008 Woodie Awards
Cool class: Geology 120
Maggi Allen recounts the trip of a lifetime
Maggi Allen
Issue date: 4/29/08 Section: Features
"I have to do WHAT in the desert?!" was my immediate reaction on the first day of Geology 120 when our professor enlightened us to the fact that our campsites would not include toilets for roughly 50 percent of our 10 day adventure.
The class, led by the intrepid Matty Mookerjee, took us on a 10 day tour of California geology, following the San Andreas Fault from the Bay Area to Bakersfield, ending climactically in Death Valley.
Twelve students, one professor, a cook and her daughter, three cars and not enough tent space later, I realized that these were the people I would remember for the rest of my life.
At Sonoma State, it is so easy to get caught up in the tide of G.E.s and major requirements that we forget about all the other classes we could be taking to fulfill ourselves, not just that little blue sheet given to us at orientation.
I spent my spring break hitting rocks with other rocks, sharing a two person tent with three people, climbing into the crater of a volcano, spelunking, and swing dancing around a campfire all in the name of SSU Geology.
I enjoyed the dozens of hours spent in the car as we shuffled across California, pulling over in the most remote and obscure locations to spend an afternoon mapping faults and deformations and answering "San Andreas Fault!" to every question, because it was usually the answer.
We learned the ins and outs of Structural Geology, our Professor's focus, while also taking in some of the most breathtaking sights in California.
We spent several hours driving through the Mojave Desert in 95 degree heat. We ended up being pulled from a pit of sand by a train worker and towed out of sand dunes by a fat, sunburned, desert dweller on a four wheeler, running low on water, urinating in tumbleweeds, and being massively sunburned.
However, despite the minor inconvenience of this plethora of events, we made it out alive and very much enthused about Geology.
While this class changes with every semester based on who is teaching it, I am absolutely positive that the experiences will be just as memorable and astounding in the future.
The class, led by the intrepid Matty Mookerjee, took us on a 10 day tour of California geology, following the San Andreas Fault from the Bay Area to Bakersfield, ending climactically in Death Valley.
Twelve students, one professor, a cook and her daughter, three cars and not enough tent space later, I realized that these were the people I would remember for the rest of my life.
At Sonoma State, it is so easy to get caught up in the tide of G.E.s and major requirements that we forget about all the other classes we could be taking to fulfill ourselves, not just that little blue sheet given to us at orientation.
I spent my spring break hitting rocks with other rocks, sharing a two person tent with three people, climbing into the crater of a volcano, spelunking, and swing dancing around a campfire all in the name of SSU Geology.
I enjoyed the dozens of hours spent in the car as we shuffled across California, pulling over in the most remote and obscure locations to spend an afternoon mapping faults and deformations and answering "San Andreas Fault!" to every question, because it was usually the answer.
We learned the ins and outs of Structural Geology, our Professor's focus, while also taking in some of the most breathtaking sights in California.
We spent several hours driving through the Mojave Desert in 95 degree heat. We ended up being pulled from a pit of sand by a train worker and towed out of sand dunes by a fat, sunburned, desert dweller on a four wheeler, running low on water, urinating in tumbleweeds, and being massively sunburned.
However, despite the minor inconvenience of this plethora of events, we made it out alive and very much enthused about Geology.
While this class changes with every semester based on who is teaching it, I am absolutely positive that the experiences will be just as memorable and astounding in the future.
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