baroclinic_instability

The atmosphere is a gas. We have to have a background in chemistry even if we don't use it much in meteorology. It is used quite often, however, in the fields atmospheric chemistry and climatological modeling, for instance.

That, combined with the RUC for the near-term...who needs forecasters?

Grades have nothing to do with how qualified you are. You should make the distinction between how qualified someone may be and how well they happened to perform in college. Thankfully employers look at other aspects including internship experiences, student projects, and forecasting/communications ability as opposed to simply basing qualification on grades. That would be silly. I think every undergrad student can name various students who had 4.0's and made the cirriculum look easy but couldn't forecast a lick or communicate with non-meteorologists without mentioning QG Omega/Chi. Thankfully employers don't look at grades only or I never would have had a chance based off my below average Calc grades. I guess that means I am unqualified? Moral of the story here to potential meteorology majors, don't quit just because your calculus scores happen to be low or you have a less than stellar GPA. It doesn't matter if you show dedication and hard work.

A bit OT, and certainly not a rule, but universities have a direct benefit in passing graduate students since they are performing research and working on behalf of the university. Most universities are quite generous in grading in graduate school for this reason. They have to have a strict standard, of course, but they also want students to succeed in the research they are doing.

Agreed 100%. Knowing people is most important, and good grades, internships, experience, and hard work alone don't get you in. A little luck and knowing the right folks (which of course happens through hard work as well) is needed to eventually score a job. A ton of those 1000 folks graduating per year work their butts off and have killer resumes yet still don't get in. I have a lot of good friends who never made it even though they had all the qualities needed. They eventually went to grad school and went into other fields like energy, modeling (like you said), and GIS. There is potential but one may have to go to school longer than they want.

That says it right there, in bold. What are they going to say? We are really struggling and aren't showing much growth? But yeah, I will also say with private weather experience of my own they are doing better as long as they can sell to their potential customers the cost/benefit and that paying now will save a lot later. But because of this, competition is also growing a lot amongst private sector companies and therefore margins are generally down. A lot of state DOT contracts are bidded contracts, for instance, and often times they MUST take the lowest bid (regardless of quality of product as long as certain stipulations are met in the contract) from a private company. What does that mean? The lowest bidder wins and eventually even these private companies really aren't making a lot of cash. Throw in the massive supply of mets to the tiny demand and private sector companies can generally get away with paying much less with smaller benefits.

Generally they seek a M.S. degree. GIS and meteorology combined are a good combo as well as mathematics/meteorology. I have a number of friends who work in energy and that is generally the winning combos although various engineering degrees will get you in as well. Energy as a whole is a pretty broad field.

TV is not meteorology, it is broadcasting. It should come as no surprise a full B.S. degree is not required for most openings in television. Even if you are considering on-air television, it is brutal. I had a number of friends who went that route and they hate it. Don't think you will start out in Chicago. A lot of on-air mets start in very small market locations such as Minot, ND for instance, where you will be working weekends to start and prolly making around 15-18000k a year. Moreover, from my friends in that part of the business, it is very stressful both because of the public demands on almost impossible perfection as well as inter-office competition and the fact everyone thinks the person coming in is looking to replace them.

I give stormtracker credit for even reading this far in to that diatribe to find this typo. "you will have a high risk of being laid unless you have well above average forecasting skills as companies prefer the cheap labour they can get from eager and willing new grads. "

Another route is M.S. degree, and a lot of students are now doing that to better diversify themselves. Problem with that is a lot of students are doing that, and nobody looks that much better on paper in the end, especially if they have no experience. A good example of this job market is, during an interview with an NWS office, the MIC told me two Ph.D's applied for the intern opening! It is a real tough market right now, and meteorology is no exception. This market, for whatever reason, continues to explode and undergraduate rates are skyrocketing. It seems logical to believe hyped television shows such as Storm Chasers as well as the general fascination with extreme weather in general have driven this explosion, and I see no end within the next five years.

Matters what you want to do. Regardless, you need to be an over-achiever and show you can make it to potential empoyers. First jobs are key to get the experience, and having a lot of internships and undergraduate experiences will better the chance. A good example is the NWS...they hire about 70-80 per year for the various positions and about 800-1000 graduate per year! Private sector is another option but they generally pay a lot less (generally) and those openings aren't really growing very fast either. Simple fact is, without considering how good you are or who you know, 70+% will never get a job. Chew on that.