University of Miami Meterology Curriculum

[kranki]

I feel like an idiot on this board and finally came up with a scheme to become less ignorant about the discussions here. Hopefully! I went to the University of Miami web site, and looked at the Meterology Undergraduate degree requirements.

I am assuming that graduates from there might be able to get an entry-level job at NHC since it is so close to the NHC. However, that may be a bad assumption.

I chose the first three courses, Meterology, Oceanography and Weather Forecasting (actually I could not believe that Forecasting was not an upper-level course). Anyway, I plan to order the books for those materials which amounts over $350. So, I would appreciate some feedback from anyone who has a meterology degree if this is a good way to go about learning about Tropical Cyclones.

I graduated with a Bachelor in Mathematics and General Business which has served me very well, but that was 30 years ago. My college gpa meets the requirements for the undergraduate major. So, I hope that I am smart enough to pick some of this up. I have not used Calculus, Differential Equations, et al since then. I have used Algebra, Trig and some Matrix Algebra for some of the computer programming that I have done in my career. And I studied the Sun for a while and found that reading upper level and graduate textbooks taught me a lot even though I basically skipped the calculus being used. I am not interested in taking the time to re-enter college. U of M is over 100 hundred miles from my home. (I live in the lower Florida Keys.) Last, my wife would divorce me if I was living part-time in Miami and commuting would be difficult. So, that is out.

I still read a lot of technical books, magazines, etc on computer programming (in the areas that I am interested in). So, I figured that I could pound my way through some of these books.

That is my plan. So, again, if you have a Meterology degree, is this plan a sound one or is there some other way that is better (ie less hard or faster)?

Thank you for your time and hope that this is not that far off topic here.

[kranki]

So far, nobody has responded. So, I bought the books for MSC103 which includes "Understanding Weather and Climate" by Aguado and "Atmospheric Science" by Wallace. Since the reviewers on Amazon stipulated that you need to be fluent in Calculus, I ordered a Calculus book for review. (I am hoping that the calculus comes back since I used to enjoy it a lot!) Those texts will have a lot of yellow highlighting when I get done with them!

[pojo]

Save yourself some money and take Synoptic and Dynamic thru USDA (US Dept of Agriculture)... they are distance education classes and you can take on YOUR schedule.

Shannon

[kranki]

Thanks, Shannon. I will look into that. I already bought the initial books and they are on their way. So, I will go through them. I really don't want to forecast; I just want to be able to understand what is being said and be able to ask intelligent questions. But I will follow up your suggestions too. Thanks again.

For anyone else interested in this, I found the courses at http://www.grad.usda.gov/. The courses for Dynamic Meterology and Synoptic Meterology are: <ul>
<li><a href="http://www.grad.usda.gov/course_details.php?cid=METO1160C">METO1160C - Introdution to Meterology</a><li>
<li><a href="http://www.grad.usda.gov/course_details.php?cid=METO3361C">METO3361C - Dynamic Meterology I</a><li>
<li><a href="http://www.grad.usda.gov/course_details.php?cid=METO3362C">METO3362C - Dynamic Meterology II</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.grad.usda.gov/course_details.php?cid=METO4461C">METO4461C - Synoptic Meterology I</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.grad.usda.gov/course_details.php?cid=METO4462C">METO4462C - Synoptic Meterology II</a></li>
</ul>
The introduction course is a prerequisite for the other courses. From what I saw, the courses are $355 each plus books and materials. They do look good from their descriptions and I think that I will take a few once I have read the books that I ordered. Be aware that the intro class requires a background in college algebra and physics. I also noticed that one of the other courses also required knowledge of calculus, but did not review all the prereqs.

For anyone who have had those math courses and want a quick review / reference, "The VNR Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics", ISBN 0-442-20590-2 is excellent. It is out of print, but can be gotten through Amazon.com. It has a few examples per subject, but not as much as a normal college course textbook and covers a lot of ground quickly in its 776 pages.

Sorry for the html, but the data is there.

Shannon, also, thanks for serving in the military. I was in the Army for 3 three years and know that military life requires sacrifices no matter what rank that you are. Again, thank you for your service for us.

[Aslkahuna]

Dynamics requires calculus bottom line. Actually, though technically one could get on board with NOAA with a Bachelor's Degree, nowadays it usually takes a Masters at least unless one has actual experience in the field.

Steve

[WindRunner]

The Wallace (and Hobbs) is a classic intro book . . . haven't looked much into it yet, but the professor for my intro class up here in Albany listed it as an "optinal" book so it was immediately purchased. Since they just (a couple years ago?) came out with a new edition, it should be even more useful.

[kranki]

Thanks, I have started working on the math. Seems that I need to restart a few neurons, though. I was planning on applying for the USDA Intro course next year if I can get the math back up. Still going to read the books that I ordered no matter what.

WindRunner, thank you for the recommendation of the Wallace book. There were not a lot of reviewers on the books that I ordered, but most were very positive. So, it is nice to hear that I won't be wasting my time.

Aslkahuna, for NOAA/NHC, I was thinking that a bachelors degree might get you into the door as a low life/runner/etc (been there, done that lol). It is always nice when an organization will give a young graduate a career start from my point of view. However, I would have expected their higher level jobs to have greater requirements as you have stated. Anyway, I must admit that I was just guessing, since I have never seen any discussions about it and my prior experience is in computer programming.