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Rock Your Career Path!

Rock Your Career Path!

Welcome to the Fleming College Geological Technician Co-op program student blog. The Geological Technician Co-op program trains students for careers as geoscience technicians in a variety of industries and specializations, including environmental geology, mining and mineral exploration, geotechnical engineering, hydrogeology, materials testing and engineering geology. 

Shawn Jensen – Environmental Flow Technician

Shawn Jensen – Environmental Flow Technician

Who was my co-op with? I did my Earth Resource Technician (ERT, now Geological Technician) co-op with AMG Environmental Monitoring. My six-month co-op at AMG began on May 10th. AMG Environmental provides flow monitoring services for storm sewers, sanitary sewers and rivers. AMG also offers 

Tiernan Davies – Mineral Exploration Geotechnician

Tiernan Davies – Mineral Exploration Geotechnician

For my summer and fall co-op term I worked for Aurora Geosciences as a geo-technician. Aurora is a Canada-wide exploration consulting company that specializes in geological consulting and conducts a wide variety of geophysical surveys.  As I was eager to being my co-op, I started looking for a co-op position early second semester and came across Aurora’s website by conducting a quick Google search for Canadian exploration consulting companies. Their website really caught my attention, and I sent them an email expressing my interest in a co-op opportunity. Not long after I applied, I received an email for an interview. I decided to accept the job offer from Aurora as I felt Aurora would satisfy my desire to travel around Canada.

Continue reading Tiernan Davies – Mineral Exploration Geotechnician
Riley Borutski – Mineral Exploration Geotechnician

Riley Borutski – Mineral Exploration Geotechnician

For my co-op term, I worked at Generation Mining as a Geotechnician in a remote township in North Western Ontario called Marathon. Working in Marathon was a great opportunity because it is in one of the most mining rich areas of Ontario.. My experience with 

Daniel Chodur – Soil Sampler/Mineral Exploration Technician

Daniel Chodur – Soil Sampler/Mineral Exploration Technician

This summer I worked as a Soil Sampler for Big River Mineral Exploration in the Yukon. I found out about this opportunity through our ERT (now Geological Technician) Program Coordinator, Joanna Hodge. During my time with this company I learned a lot about the practical 

Sarah Murphy – Environmental Remediation

Sarah Murphy – Environmental Remediation

I completed my co-op for the Earth Resource Technician Program (ERT, now known as the Geological Technician Program) as an Environmental Remediation Student with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL). Overall, my position was largely administrative which meant that I spent a lot of time at a desk. However, my position provided me with the opportunity to learn a lot about the construction process, quality assurance, compliance and policies associated with projects handling low-level radioactive waste (LLRW).

Continue reading Sarah Murphy – Environmental Remediation
Keaton Markham – Geological Technician

Keaton Markham – Geological Technician

During this co-op semester, I worked for Bayside Geoscience. They are a geological consultation company based out of Thunder Bay, Ontario. I found this position through networking on LinkedIn. My position in the company was as a Geological Technician. With Bayside being a consultation company 

Brad Wright – Geotechnical Technician

Brad Wright – Geotechnical Technician

My co-op term was spent at the engineering consultancy firm WSP in their Peterborough office. My role at the company was officially “Co-op student – geotechnical” however the equivalent role was geotechnical technician. I found my opportunity to be an excellent learning experience overall, the 

Graham Thorne – Mineral Exploration Technician

Graham Thorne – Mineral Exploration Technician

Over this past summer I had the good fortune of working for a mineral exploration company in northern Canada. The company is called Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp. The focus of our camp in northern Saskatchewan was looking for thorium-rich monazite that contains rare earth elements. Rare earths are used to produce many green technologies like EV batteries, solar panels, windmills, and electronic screens. I was hired as a “contract geologist”, as all other geos in our company (aside from the project manager) are titled. My status within the camp, however, was listed as “geotechnician”. Employment in mineral exploration is generally contract/seasonal work, often with a fly-in-fly-out schedule. (Eg.: four weeks on/two weeks off.)

Continue reading Graham Thorne – Mineral Exploration Technician
Jesse Demaries-Smith – Geotechnical Field Technician

Jesse Demaries-Smith – Geotechnical Field Technician

My co-op for the ERT course was working as a Geotechnical field technician in Ottawa with the company Golder Associates. Working at Golder was a very good opportunity for me to learn, grow, and get a taste of what type of industries I can go 

Amanda Smith – Mineral Exploration Technician

Amanda Smith – Mineral Exploration Technician

I applied to the ERT program with the intent to get into mineral exploration and wanted to take the co-op as an opportunity to get introduced into the profession. I spent some time in my first semester getting excited about the co-op, researching different companies,