GeologyRocks

Hello there!

I'm a canadian student (Québec province) who recently gratuated from hischool, with all strong maths + chemistry + physics classes I could take. Next year, I chose to study economics because it's a quite promising field (for employment) where I am very gifted. However, I was always attracted by Earth and planetary sciences and my dad is a chemical engineer who's been in the mining industry for now 25 years. Over the years, he shown me quite a lot and introduced me to the "world of rocks".

I recently thought about maybe have a career plan B, which consists in studying geology. I've never been the strongest guy in physics or chemistry of my group (I only scored an average of 93% while harcore studying, compared to economics, where I got 97% without studying or in maths where I got 98% while studying , all for the last semester), but I am a hard working, curious folk.

However, a geologist teaching at the University told me that the main areas of employement (where I could earn a reasonable salary for a master degree) were mining or petroleum industries. My main interest as a geologist would be to focus into planetary sciences, to eventually do research or analyze data from, let's say, rovers on Mars, or even help explore new worlds in space and better understand how planets work, geologically speaking. Sadly, the same geologist didn't know about planetary geology.

Now I am adressing you guys, geology undergraduates and graduates: how hard is it to find a job in geology, other than in petroleum or mining fields? How hard is it, more specifically, to find a job in planetary geology, like at NASA, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) or research labs? Also, how do you get experience when you get out of Uni?

Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated. I am very glad to find such a nice geology community, here on the internet

P.S: sorry for my average skills in English. 

Thanks! Pierre-Olivier.