Academics

GPS supports close collaboration between its faculty and students, as well as interdisciplinary studies within and between Caltech's various academic divisions. This broad-based curriculum encompasses the graduate level as well, allowing students with undergraduate degrees not only in geology and related fields but in biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics the chance to excel as researchers and as scholars within GPS.

GPS Undergraduate Program

The GPS undergraduate program is designed to provide its students with a thorough training in the geological and planetary sciences and, whenever possible, to integrate these studies with the core curriculum courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology that all students take during their first years at Caltech.

The division offers a major and minor in Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS). Under the GPS major, students can choose to pursue a focused track in geology, geobiology, geochemistry, geophysics, and planetary science. The undergraduate program also offers an Environmental Science and Engineering major and minor. The ESE major can be pursued along two tracks: environmental physics and environmental chemistry.