My name is Kai Corley-Jory, and I am a 4th-year student in geology at UBC. I initially attended Langara College before transferring to UBC in 2016 to start my geology degree. I never knew I wanted to be a geologist until I started the program at UBC and haven’t looked back since.
Over the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to have my first job experience in a geologic field. I was a field assistant to a master student here at UBC, and we spent about a month in the field together. My work during this trip included something different almost every day, but the majority of it was related to geologic mapping near Cantung Mine in NWT. It was a lot of hard work, day in and day out, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. Being surrounded by massive ridges in the Mackenzie mountain range, with no one else around is an indescribable feeling. Even for a job like this I needed to be very organized and clear with the notes I would take in my field notebook, and I believe this writing course will only help to improve that clarity.
Starting this year I will be looking for work in the mining or mineral exploration side of geology. Either of these positions would allow me significant time in the outdoors and opportunities to travel. One particular area of geology that I am drawn to is structural geology, and that’s essentially understanding and interpreting the three-dimensional distribution of rocks due to deformation. For me, this is the chance to finish a puzzle where almost all the pieces have been lost, and half of it is buried underground. Of course to do this type of work I have to spend a lot of time in the beautiful outdoors, which is definitely not a downside for me!
*The header image for the site is one I took of the Hyland River this summer.