Students study Geophysics full time and go on a field school to gain practical experience with geophysical equipment. In previous years the field excursions have taken place in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Weaker students can also take the Honours course over two years, if they so desire. Students who wish to take Geophysics but who do not have all of the prerequisites may be permitted to study, providing the missing courses are taken simultaneously. The Physics department offers a geophysics option in 3rd year, which interested students can take to get an idea of what geophysics has to offer.
Geophysicists are in demand by industry and jobs are easy to obtain after graduation.
Bursaries from industry can be arranged for good students. The geophysics department has a small network of Sun workstations that are mainly used for processing data from the Kaapval craton experiment. Both the Erdas and MIPS image processing software packages are used within the department. Modelling of magnetic, gravity, and resistivity data is performed under Windows using software written within the department. The department possesses a range of geophysical equipment such as magnetometers, gravimeters, seismic refraction equipment, resistivity meters, etc that are used by students as part of their training.