The Atmospheric Sciences Program (ASP) is designed to provide students with a basic foundation in the physical principles, theory, methodological skills, and applications central to the disciplines of meteorology and climatology. We seek to produce scholars and scientists able to perform academic research work of the highest quality. Graduate students are central to the Program's scholarly and scientific community, their research and teaching contributions are central to our mission. Overall, these goals are reflected in the graduate program's broad programmatic objectives: To bring graduate students rapidly and fully into the collegial, scholarly, scientific, and teaching life of the Geography Department, the ASP, and the University, To provide a common foundation for graduate research in atmospheric sciences, To provide a variety of courses to meet student research and training needs, and to support student efforts to find relevant courses outside the department, To offer opportunities for students to become familiar with current research within the atmospheric sciences, To encourage students to engage in academic research presentations and critique and To support as far as possible the financial needs of graduate students through a variety of teaching and research assistantships, fellowships, and other mechanisms. The ASP is designed to develop outstanding thinkers and to lay the foundation for rewarding careers. OSU Geography/Atmospheric Sciences has a long history of preparing students for diverse jobs in academia/education, government, the private sector, and non-profits. Master's graduates in particular have found that their intellectual and technical training in our department leads to fulfilling careers in multiple fields.