Information for Prospective Students

Information about Current & Past Students

I see my job as facilitating your growth as a geoscientist (and maybe as a person) and helping you to achieve reasonable career goals. Baylor University is located in central Texas, so it should come as no surprise that my graduate students at Baylor have all sought to establish careers in the oil business. Students I worked with earlier in my career also pursued petroleum geoscience, and some became engineering geologists or geoscience researchers.

To communicate with me about working on a graduate degree in structural geology (or neotectonics) at Baylor, send an email to Vince_Cronin@baylor.edu

The essential core of graduate work toward a Masters degree is a research project conducted by the MS candidate. This process formally begins with the presentation of a thesis proposal to a committee of graduate faculty members. The proposal is a written document that is provided to the committee. MS candidates are strongly urged to read and follow the writing tips that are provided on another page, or else their progress to the degree might be delayed or ended. About a week after the proposal is given to the members of the graduate committee, the MS candidate makes a public oral presentation describing the proposed research project. After the oral presentation, the graduate committee asks the candidate questions intended to elicit information about whether the project is reasonable and appropriate, and whether the student is capable of completing the project well in a timely manner.

The MS candidate resumes thesis research after the graduate committee approves the thesis project. This typically involves submitting proposals for funding to several organizations and foundations, literature research, computer work, field work, perhaps laboratory work, creation of illustrations using a computer-graphics application like Canvas or Adobe Illustrator, and creation of the thesis text. The web page that Dr. Cronin has created about the thesis outline contains important information about the thesis document: style, organization, and so on.

If you have any questions or comments about this site or its contents, drop an email to the humble webmaster.
All of the original content of this website is © 2014 by Vincent S. Cronin