When the Ground Shifts, a Geology Major Seeks Answers
2/26/2009
Earthquakes of cataclysmic proportions are events that scare the average person. But for Nicole Braudy, a Geology Department junior, they are an opportunity to seek answers.
"I was working in the restaurant business when I decided I should go back to school," says Braudy, a Boston University dropout who, after an eight-year hiatus, decided to get back to school in June 2007.
Though it was too late to enroll, she learned Brooklyn College has a rolling admissions program, which gave her the opportunity to change her life sooner than expected.
Even better, she got a full scholarship and stipend for teaching middle school kids through the CUNY Teacher Academy, a program whose mission is to prepare new teachers who are committed to improving student achievement and inspiring middle and high school students’ interest in mathematics and science.
"I was interested in the sciences, maybe chemistry," she notes. But the ground imperceptibly shifted when she decided to explore geology.
"From the moment I stepped into my Geology I class, the course brought back childhood memories of the big boulder we had in the backyard of my family’s Middletown, N.Y. home," Braudy admits.
By the end of her first year, however, Braudy realized that being bound by the terms of the Academy scholarship was not to her advantage, and she decided to devote herself to her new passion on a full-time basis.
"Geology is not learning about rocks, but solving the mysteries of the earth," she says. Being able to determine the importance of an area’s mountain formations, for example, and the impact that this may have on human settlements is important. Besides, geology appeals to her adventurous nature.
Last year, Braudy spent three weeks in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a CUNY team. This summer she hopes to go to Istanbul with a Queens College professor whose project involves surveying and analyzing data from an extensional zone where tectonic plates are pulling apart. This will allow scientists to examine a fault line up close, build a model, predict where an earthquake is most likely to happen next, and project what and where Turkey can do to fortify its coastline.
Having learned about the multiple applications of her science of choice, Braudy is now eager to pursue her Ph.D. in geology. And there is no shortage of jobs. Governments need to survey lands to establish the best use for them; construction companies need to make rock analyses to determine how deep foundations should go.
"I like science because it provides answers," Braudy concludes. But it also brings up new questions and nudges you to seek answers, she acknowledges.
