What to Expect

Three-quarters of the Earth is covered in water. Oceanography students explore the wondrous world under the sea.

Micaela Schnitzler Parker took a PhD in oceanography at the University of Washington. She knows a lot about diatoms, a kind of algae. If you ever slipped on a slimy rock as you walked along a beach or through a river, you know what they look and feel like.

So why would anybody want to study gooey, greenish-looking seaweed? Every higher organism depends on them for food. They also scrub the atmosphere. With the help of the sun, they release oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide -- a greenhouse gas.

But diatoms may also release greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere under certain conditions. So Schnitzler Parker is trying to find out to what extent that is happening and how it changes the global carbon cycle.

But solving that problem is likely going to take some time. It's also likely to be frustrating. An experiment that took a long time to set up may go bust in a flash. But oceanography degrees give students like Schnitzler Parker a chance to make some pretty important contributions.

Marie Archambault took a master's degree in oceanography. For one project, she had to measure and collect samples of the ocean just off the East Coast.

Among other things, she measured local currents and water salinity to understand the interplay of fresh and ocean water. She then had to write up her findings and conclusions. The total length of the project was about two weeks.

"It's quite a demanding project because of the fact that it is both in physical and chemical oceanography," says Archambault. "You have to sit down with the same data but analyze them two different ways."

Expect to spend some time at sea. Archambault enjoyed that part of the program.

"It's great," says Archambault. She says she and her classmates looked forward to leaving the classroom. "It actually lets us apply what we learn in class to the environment and to actually be an oceanographer."

Schnitzler Parker says some students spend as much as four months on research cruises, collecting data and samples for lab analysis.

Other students may spend a lot of time in the lab. It all depends on the research that they are doing. Oceanography is, after all, a large field of study that requires a great deal of scientific discipline.

"Be very aware that oceanography has nothing to do with dolphins or Free Willy," says Schnitzler Parker. "Most of oceanography is physics and chemistry. Most of biological oceanography is looking at microscopic critters. There will be a lot of math, but it's doable and mostly painless."