Is a career in meteorology worth it?

Hi Rachael! Sorry you went a month without a reply. I’m not sure I can speak for everyone, but I will tell you from my personal opinion, meteorology is a challenging but interesting career choice. It’s much more broad than I ever realized when I went to college, and there’s lot of places you can go with a weather degree. I won’t lie, there are lots of smart people in it and it can be a lot of work, but meteorologists are an integral part of everyone’s lives! With a meteorology degree you can work on weather satellites launched into space, you can research, you can forecast, you can be on air, and you can even work for companies like Mars Candy Co and Southwest Airlines (who has their own team to give daily forecast briefings and a sweet internship!) there’s endless places you can go from Hawaii to Puerto Rico, every area needs weather coverage. If you consider post grad education, you can work on even more technical weather things like developing better models for forecasting. It’s certainly interesting, and if you do decide to go with it, I encourage you to work with your advisor or professor to fully explore what options you can take in your degree and career path and find what makes you happy! In terms of pay, it depends where you go and what you do. Satellite industries for defense contractors (where I’m at) pay pretty well if you ask. I’ve climbed pretty quickly with good annual reviews. But an on-air weekend meteorologist in Idaho probably doesn’t make very much. If you do scientific work, it can easily become a 6-figure salary. I will certainly follow this post If you have questions. Hope this helps!