Editorial: Fault Zones
Melanie L. Buffington · VCU Scholars Compass (Virginia Commonwealth University) · 2018
As an undergraduate student, I had a list of general education requirements I needed to fulfill and the one I dreaded was a lab science.I knew from high school experiences with large worms and frogs and that lingering smell of formaldehyde that I had no interest in taking a class that required me to dissect an animal.A few days before the start of class registration, the student newspaper published a list of the 10 easiest classes and one of those, known as Rocks for Jocks, was a lab science.A few friends mentioned they were going to take the class and thus, I signed up for a Geological Science class.On the first day of class the professor's introduction surprised me.He knew the class was called Rocks for Jocks and he knew it was on the infamous list of easy classes.He also informed us that the Geology department did not appreciate making that list and took him off of teaching graduate classes intentionally to elevate the level of this general education undergraduate course.It was a sad realization for me that this class was not going to be a cakewalk.However, over the next several weeks and months, I grew increasingly interested in geology and rock formations.The professor frequently utilized hyper-local examples including sites on campus and in the immediate surrounding area.He also organized a field trip that took us about 10 miles from campus where we stood by the side of