Is there are course of geology in college?
This is simply my opinion. I am comparing colleges based on the interaction with students in my master's class who did their bachelor's from colleges all over India.
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St. Xavier's college: My alma mater. Hence, may be biased towards it. I loved this place. It had a highly structured course that I liked. You can learn subjects like remote sensing and gemmology. While a few colleges introduce remote sensing at the undergraduate, they do not go into as much detail as the course in St. Xavier's. I don't know if gemmology is taught anywhere else in India.
The department seems understaffed and the professors seem overworked. The faculty is not very large and neither is the department. However, the professors make up for it with the quality of their teaching.
Another advantage it has is that it is located in Mumbai. There are plenty of opportunities to grow, perhaps more than in any other city in India. See if you can make it here for your undergraduation. I would call this option no. 1.
- Jadavpur University: A very good option. I quizzed my classmates and found that these people had the most extensive fieldwork of all. The people here are sound in petrology and mineralogy. The department is large and wells staffed. There are mixed opinions about the amount of politics on the campus. The alumni are everywhere. Some believe that it is very easy to stay neutral and most of the time, the politics mostly goes unnoticed. Some find that they had to consciously avoid getting involved in anything.
- BHU and AMU: They are also good options. The course is not as structured as at Xavier's. Interaction between seniors and juniors is high. In my experience, people from BHU tend to be excellent at micropalaeontology and are quite good at sedimentology too. They have extensive campuses and plenty of opportunities to grow, especially in sports. One of my current classmates regrets not having made the most of the opportunities presented to him during his days at AMU. He laments that he was too lazy during his undergraduate days.
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Unconventional choices: There are many places where people can learn geology. I have mentioned the conventional choices of the "top" colleges to go to. But with an enthusiastic learner can take the intiative to learn a lot anywhere. Some lesser known places tend to have great redeeming features. For example, I have heard that geology students in Hazaribag learn mathematics and physics just as intesively as geology for at least two years.
IISER Kolkata is new and unproven. Entrants enter through JEE or KVPY and undergo a five year course during which they seem to have a lot of research opportunities.
Yes definitely, there are several colleges that provide courses of Geology.
Various government and private colleges offer B.Sc in Geology and also M.Sc. It is basically Earth Science and you can further study it's sub-discipline Astrogeology as well.
Most of the colleges admit students for this course based on merit of class 12, there may be some exceptions where certain colleges might conduct entrance exams.
Below are some of the colleges in India that offer this course-
- Dibrugarh University, Assam
- M.G. Science Institute, Ahmedabad
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Assabah Science and Arts College, Kerala
- M.E.S. Ponnani College, Kerala
- Himalayan University, Arunachal Pradesh
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Presidency Institute, Kolkata
- Sree Narayana College, Kerala
- Shivaji University, Kolhapur
You can go through the below link to find several more colleges that offer Geology courses-
http://www.university.careers360.com/colleges/list-of-geology-colleges-in-india
Good luck!
Hope this helps.