For two school years I was the Teaching Assistant for the Mineralogy / Petrology sequence at MSU. Although I had been only a 'B' student when I took Mineralogy, I really had to raise my level of knowledge in the field in order to keep ahead of the students.

I'm happy to report that many of those students have been successful geologists, and I'm still in touch with some of them.

Bozeman is a really great place to teach Mineralogy and Petrology, since field trips can be made to a lot of rock types within an afternoon lab period, and the Stillwater Complex (layered intrusive a la Bushveld), Yellowstone Park, and the Boulder Batholith are easy Saturday trip targets.

The second year I became the lecturer for the course, when the Professor (the late Dr. Robert A. Chadwick) went on sabbatical to New Zealand.