I sat on the idea of changing to planetary sciences. I said, “You know what, I don't want to do astro anymore. I’m changing to planetary,” and went to the undergraduate advisor for earth sciences. I was told that I had to pass Earth 101 before I would even be considered a major. I was like, “I’m a junior astrophysics major—I can do science. I want to change because I'm unhappy, not because I'm failing” (everyone laughs). So, I took Earth 101, and Earth Science in Cinema, and he built me a program that I could finish in a year—I just had to take these classes and boom, boom, boom.
The following semester, I took Planetary Sciences and Field Geology. Planetary Sciences was super fun and physics-like, but I just fell in love with Field. Oh my god, I couldn’t get enough of it. The camping gear and going out in nature. Measuring. Our field professor was so badass and cool—Hilde Schwartz. When we’d go out in the field she would yell, “Hurry up! Come on! I'm an old lady and I can do this! Keep up with me!” To me, she knew everything about this vast subject and was so full of energy. Every single Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we were out and about. If you open up my field notebook and look at the first and last day, there’s a thirty-two-day span with eighteen different entries for field trips. That’s how many field trips we took in just over a month. Toward the end, we did a six-day mapping project over two weekends. I loved the planetary science course; it was a lot of fun. But, the field stuff was for me. I just loved working in the field.
I pretty much mapped in my underwear one day during summer field camp in the Poleta Fold Belt. It was dress up day and I had on a big floppy hat, my field pack, belt and hammer, aquamarine pants, and this tankini that I bought at a Bishop thrift store. The carbonate destroyed the pants throughout the day, and the tankini was super constricting because it was made for a seven year old, so I took it off. By the end of the day, I was pretty much in my underwear and my field pack and a big floppy hat. It’s very cowboy-like, isn't it? You're like a cowboy, when you're a geologist. You’re out there with your tools and it’s you against nature. It's rugged. It's tough. There’s all this stuff in nature to study, so why not study this? I realized that I wanted to put my hands on rock. It’s this very idea that cemented my choice in geology.
So then would you say that you chose geology or that geology chose you?
Geology chose me. When I was young, I used to go on long hikes after school wearing my Dad’s old commando pants, tromping through everything. I was exploring. I like exploring and understanding how things work and the biggest and most complicated thing that we can look at and actually touch is the earth. That's what draws me to it. I think you're definitely predisposed to wanting to do it, but you have to be lucky enough to be exposed to it. You have to have a mind that wants to accept this kind of information because it completely adjusts the way you look at almost everything. I won't comment on the quality of the adjustment, but there are adjustments to be made and I can’t imagine going back to interacting with nature without it. So, I think the real answer is: both.