mah audience

I'm getting some geoblogosphere traffic, so I know at least a few of my (4?) readers are geologists. I hope I'm not coming off as pedantic or obvious to you experienced folks, so I thought I'd discuss who I'm writing for.

Now, we all know that the audience I'm writing for is not necessarily the one I wish I had. If I could magically exclude all easily-offended potential bosses and coworkers and have an audience of the rest of the world, that would be terrific. Instead, I am changing details and avoiding talking about more embarrassing/hair-raising but possibly more identifiable subjects.

So who am I writing for?

When I post, the person I have in my head is, well, me. That is, the person I was years ago who was just starting to consider work in the environmental field and had no friggin' clue what she was doing. See this post.

There's a lot more info out there than when I was first starting out, but at school I come in contact with a lot of undergrads who are considering a job with some sort of field component (usually geologists, ecologists, certain engineers, and some "environmental science" generalists) and they are hungry for inside information on the work. What is it really like? How much training do you get before you're on your own? Are you happy with your long-term prospects? This is also true for grad students who haven't been out in the "real world" yet, but since they have friends who are/were consultants, they tend not to overwhelm me with questions like the undergrads.

So please be patient, experienced geologist readers. Some of the stuff I'll write about is obvious to us, but it may not be obvious to them.