New World vs Old World. Battle of the degree's

Since September this year, I have left my home country of Britain to pursue a PhD at the University of Ottawa, Canada. I have completed my undergrad and masters at the University of Plymouth, UK, and felt that it would be interesting to compare the degree I have to what students here gain. I have been teaching first year and will be teaching third year geochem next term and through talking to my fellow students here I’ve begun to build up a picture of the differences in our degrees. These thoughts are entirely my own.

Time

Time is money, as they say, degrees in the States and Canada take four years, while a Bsc in Europe will typically take 3 years full time, composed of two terms/semesters. Masters will take a year/two (Mres), while in the states and Canada you’re looking at a 2 – 3 year masters.

Depth

Every university is different, and I can only go by what I’ve seen / experienced the colonies are much deeper, mainly it’s a thing of time. Whereas in the UK a student will study only ‘geology’ from day one, here the first year is more based loosely on ‘science’ enabling incredible flexibility to be carried through. Like chemistry? You can study it as a significant component of your geosciences degree. In the UK that would have to be a geology and (say) chemistry degree, dual honours. In fact, here at Ottawa even non associated subjects can be used, maybe you like poetry? That can count…. While in the UK you’re (I assume?!) welcome to sit in for a lecture or two, but it counts for nothing.

Projects are much better (in my opinion) here at undergrad level than they were back home. While most British student geologists will spend a summer mapping some cold, windy and rocky place (in my case Norway) then write up what I saw with some thin sections…. Hardly ground breaking (even if it hadn’t been mapped in that depth before)! A student here at uOttawa will have a choice of deep and fascinating projects; even in a few cases heading off to the GSA meeting.  

Ottawa

Cost

These costings do not include the cost of living or (necessarily) fieldwork expenses

Undergrad tuition fees:

uOttawa: $2,710.65 a semester (*2) =$5421.3 a year      £3,359.63

University of Plymouth (2011 entry) =    £3,375                  $ 5,445.79

University of Plymouth (2012 entry):  £9,000                       $14,522.12

So, until next year (2012) it’s pretty comparable. Although it must be noted that the total cost of tuition is 33% more in Canada due to the extra year. Postgrad is comparable to undergrad, but that a present is beyond my scope.

Plymouth

Opportunities

Canada has the huge benefit over the UK that it is a country with active mining and oil exploration as well as a geological survey which typically employs students. In the UK there are rare opportunities; I for example wandered over some Scottish hills for a month during the break between my Bsc and masters. While a comparable student in Canada would be able to seek (very profitable!) employment with a mining company, gaining experience and contacts. Commonly such large sums of money are earnt, that fees can be paid by summer work – leaving a graduate  essentially debt free.

So, what’s better?

Canada.

Actually, I’m not saying that a Canadian degree is better than a British degree; that would be crazy of me (since I have British degree….) but from where I sit, in my debt ridden tower, Canadian students, although they have longer to study, which in itself can be beneficial – 3 years simply is not enough time to get really into a subject – hence the masters and Phd.  I also haven’t done a Bsc at all 24 universities that offer geology in the UK or the hundreds in Europe, but thanks to the Bologna Process and the Geolsoc of London accreditation  I can be reasonably sure that my degree and experience from Plymouth is representative, at least in the majority to experiences and degrees from British and European Universities.

But what does this mean to British Geology graduates on an international stage? Despite my degree taking less time and me being the youngest grad student in the department (despite being 1 degree ‘above’ 2/3 of my fellow grad students) it still has given me brilliant experiences, memories and knowledge, which I am and will continue to use to brighten my career. Canadian students though, they can see where they’ll go, there is a small ex-Plymouth graduate community in Perth, Australia – simply because if you want to work in geology you need to be where the work is; and that isn’t Britain, its Australia, Canada…. The new world.

Open House

Today, the University which I attend (although not for much longer!) held an open house day along the theme of ‘Exploration’ and I had the opportunity to take part in on the geosciences contribution towards the event. The outreach we were running (which is designed more to be fun, than educational) was a ‘dinosaur trackway’. Essentially children don on wellington boots with sponge dinosaur feet stuck onto the boots, which are dipped into ink and then children run down a long strip of paper – their stride is calculated and they are compared to a dinosaur – it’s a little more entertaining than I’ve described it; but that’s pretty much the gist of it.

The track way is always popular, I mean, it’s dinosaurs and the potential for mess – guaranteed to make children want to have a go; and although they leave with some knowledge of the geosciences (very limited... basically what dinosaur had a stride the same as theirs) it seems to me that a good opportunity of communicating geoscience is being squandered. Simply; a dinosaur trackway, although it may be appealing for little kids, older children seem to look at you with a look of ‘and... what now?’

I can’t help thinking something vaguely along the exploration line should have been provided – I mean geoscience is the science of finding stuff we need. Some economic minerals are fairly pretty and a fair few sparkle – why not tie in exploration and geoscience in that way? Or have some real bits of dinosaur – posters are all well and good, but something touchable is considerably more exciting and informative.

However, in terms of the actually event,  I noted a couple of things:

Happy children = happy parents: Important at this particular event which was being used as essentially a large PR exercise for the University.

Children want to do something: Maybe why this outreach has such a wide usage, the children are involved in making something and they seemed to enjoy it, which is the main thing.

Knowledge of the staff/volunteers: I am clueless about dinosaurs (in relation to an enthusiastic 7 year old) so when asked more complex questions I struggled a little (defusing the situation with hand gestures) . If you pitch too high– what if the volunteer can’t remember the lecture on oil stratigraphy? Or has never seen a lump of glittering ore?  This factor I guess, allows the trackway, although simple and limited to be used without fear of the cardinal sin of communication – getting something wrong.

It’s knackering: Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about rocks (just ask my girlfriend) but it is pretty exhausting particularly if you don’t really know what you’re talking about – it’s also not a pleasant experience! (the cluelessness, not the talking!)

Looking around the room the essence was more on fun than learning – the maths department had bubbles – and although I am a firm believer in transmitting information at any opportunity, perhaps offering fun for 80% of the time and information for the remaining 20% gave everyone a good experience. Which is what matters.

Ø 

Slow News Day

The BBC recently ran a story in how the Lonely Planet has been a little nasty to the delightful Devonian city of Plymouth, naturally as someone who has reasonable ties to the city I had a quick read of the article and then set upon reading the actually Lonely Planet entry – I have a strange thing about reading guide book entries for places I know rather well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/devon/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9373000/9373118.stm

It turns out that the BBC has been a little misleading on two counts,

Firstly news tends to be ‘new’ it’s kind of in the name, well this edition of the book is available on GoogleBooks (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tqpP0B-Hg7IC&lpg=PA196&dq) and does have an informative section on Plymouth which matches the text in the article; interestingly though this book has been out for three  years  (published in Feb 2008) and is duplicated in the Great Britain book (published 2009) , yet its cutting comments on Plymouth’s significant but at times God-awful architecture have been sitting about for three years... yet only make news on the 25^th of January 2011.

Secondary it subscribes to the Daily Mail manner of producing stories; that is ‘focus on the bit you want to bring across and only slightly mention any other aspect, oh and get something basic wrong’, it performs the later by successfully getting the wrong page number (it says 162, while in reality its page 196) while the former it delves into by essentially it indicating that Lonely Planet states that Plymouth is a bit of a dive but Exeter and Torquay are alright.

Well actually the only the negative text in the Lonely planet passage has been successfully mined out by the BBC, the rest of the article tends to be fairly nice, describing Plymouth’s history, wide range of attractions, bars and restaurants with the usual good flair – with a much larger slot that the more traditionally touristy Torquay and Exeter, besides , other than shopping and a day wandering round the compact barbican looking all historical– there aren’t many reasons for tourists to voyage to Plymouth.

So, this blog is roughly about geoscience; and its communication... what does the Lonely Plant describing Plymouth 3 years ago as grimy have to do with anything? Simple, the article was published not nationally, but in the local section, it’s audience was people from Plymouth or South Devon who may have strong feelings about the tourism knock-on effects of a poor write up, and travel guides are similar to scientific papers, they are an evidence based opinion, fieldwork has been conducted (the authors heading out and researching), it has been subject to peer review (has to be good quality or the ‘Rough Guide’ will sell more) and its audience is seeking knowledge and willing to gamble holiday time and money on it – the fact that the BBC felt it newsworthy to publish a three year old story on not a great deal of controversy points to how science can be reported; when a slow news day comes about, an old story, designed to generate aggravated feelings can be pumped out to generate emotions or concerns– something we’ve seen once or twice before