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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 5:55 pm 
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Thanks for that, Nuck. Lot's of maybes... I'll be back in two weeks so that open day next month is a possibility... if you could shoot me Peter's email addy I'd be most grateful.

cheers,

T


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 6:19 am 
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Kyriakin wrote:
3K+, plus accommodation (Kingston is in the fairly-affluent South-West London suburbs, that hug the upstream Thames), 1 or 2 years lost earnings etc.


Public transport is good in the London area, so there's no obligation to actually live in Kingston. There is also student housing if I'm not mistaken.

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As Barbra says, you`ll still be a further year short of earning your way into the academic `Masters` club.


You'll be one year closer to an MSc than you would be without the BSc.

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Working-for-free is better than paying-to-learn, both in terms of learning, CV and finances. Surely with your vast network in this industry you can find somewhere to teach you these things without having to shell out more $$$ for over-priced education?


Speaking from a UK point of view, there are no fully equipped functioning Gem labs in the country. So no, there is no possibility of offering to "work for free" in order to learn unless I want to move to a different country while leaving behind my family, pay rent wherever that may be and work for free while doing so.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 5:08 am 
Kyriakin wrote:
3K+, plus accommodation (Kingston is in the fairly-affluent South-West London suburbs, that hug the upstream Thames), 1 or 2 years lost earnings etc.


Public transport is good in the London area, so there's no obligation to actually live in Kingston. There is also student housing if I'm not mistaken.

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As Barbra says, you`ll still be a further year short of earning your way into the academic `Masters` club.


You'll be one year closer to an MSc than you would be without the BSc.


Well, it seems you have to take it all the way through to the M(Sc) for it to pay dividends, so that`s a 2-year commitment.

In the case of someone like Tim, who`s post-FGA experience extends well-beyond a regular grad such as myself, I don`t see why a fast-track straight through to the M(Sc) shouldn`t/wouldn`t be possible.


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Working-for-free is better than paying-to-learn, both in terms of learning, CV and finances. Surely with your vast network in this industry you can find somewhere to teach you these things without having to shell out more $$$ for over-priced education?


Speaking from a UK point of view, there are no fully equipped functioning Gem labs in the country. So no, there is no possibility of offering to "work for free" in order to learn unless I want to move to a different country while leaving behind my family, pay rent wherever that may be and work for free while doing so.


Again, my message was actually kinda aimed at the OP, Tim, who seems to have generally done a lot of travelling over the years, and to whom the UK is just one option from many. I don`t really know your personal circumstances tbh.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 7:19 am 
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From their website concerning MSc research degrees:

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In exceptional circumstances, we may consider you for admission to a research degree without the conventional qualifications. If you have substantial relevant professional experience, including publications or written reports, the University will consider these as a potential alternative basis for an application for admission to a research degree programme.


Obviously though, that still wouldn't give Tim the training in the equipment that he would need to actually work in a lab and that he seems to want to acquire. And unless you do a "conceptual" research dissertation, you'd need to know how to use the equipment and interperet the data that you get from it in order to present your findings for your MSc.

At any rate, two years from now, we'll all be two years older and to paraphrase a french saying "those who tempt nothing, win nothing". For UK students, there seems to be a fair amount of funding available. For EU students, there also appears to be tuition funding available through the UK govt, and possibly their own countries may have programs that help with costs as well.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:37 am 
I just think it should be the industry (employers) funding these courses (with commitment pre-requisites, of course), as to the industry`s needs. It will push up entry standards/requirements (maybe even to the point of eliminating myself from contention), but that isn`t a bad thing.

If labs anticipate the need for x numbers of junior staff, they should fund for that many to take these courses. Let us greenhorns take our bumps in the safe transitional environment of a further education facility, if they are unwilling to risk us taking these bumps within the `hot zone`.

Yes, at the moment the gulf between gem grad and `useful` lab-based gemmo is too great, but we are not talking about medicine or law. Future income is not to be expected to `pay-back` these up-front costs in lab gemology, and no-one is in considering entering this sector of the industry with the expectations of high income. We`re mostly here through a mixture of interest and the desire to make an `honest` living/contribution within an industry where `honesty` is not always prevalent.

These ultra-specialist course enrollments should be based on the needs of the industry they will supply, and young gemmos shouldn`t be expected to keep shelling up further 4-figure sums (discounting loss of income, living costs etc.) in the hope of finally (maybe) having enough qualifications to `tip the balance`. It would be better if companies identified gem grads who they think have potential, and supported them through gaining the post-FGA/GG education required to get them up to standard.

Anyway, as you say, there are basically no fully-functioning labs in the UK (the only country I can guarantee permission to work), so the gamble does seem extra-risky. I`ll have to pass for now.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:10 am 
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Personally, I'd rather have the possibility of taking the course if I so choose, rather than being shut out because some company didn't "sponsor" me.

One of the grads is currently doing a PhD at St. Andrews, Physics I believe. So for those who don't have a university degree, this course gives you the possibility of getting one in two years (FGA time + BSc time) rather than the three it would normally take to do a regular BSc. You could have a MSc in the same time. That opens all sorts of doors, should you, like the gent at St. Andrews, discover an unknown passion for a related field that you either never knew you liked, or maybe didn't like when you were 16.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 11:16 am 
africanuck wrote:
Personally, I'd rather have the possibility of taking the course if I so choose, rather than being shut out because some company didn't "sponsor" me.

One of the grads is currently doing a PhD at St. Andrews, Physics I believe. So for those who don't have a university degree, this course gives you the possibility of getting one in two years (FGA time + BSc time) rather than the three it would normally take to do a regular BSc. You could have a MSc in the same time. That opens all sorts of doors, should you, like the gent at St. Andrews, discover an unknown passion for a related field that you either never knew you liked, or maybe didn't like when you were 16.


If we're talking first degrees, OK yes I can see the value for sure.

Also, if the course was deemed not 'specific' to the point where people could progress to something like a PHD in Physics (I assume he never did Physics beyond, say, high school before doing the course?), then that is good too.

My main concern was regarding how acutely specific/vocational a lab-based gemology course is. The fact you are studying for 1 or 2 years to use equipment not even found in some countries career-wise (including, as you said, the UK - the world's 6th-largest economy I believe), makes it a course designed to produce people to work in a very, very tiny and specialised sector.

However, if the course has sufficient transferability and 'credibility' to allow graduates to move sideways to geology/Physics (etc.), should the lab-gemology thing not pan-out, that changes things somewhat.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 12:51 pm 
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A little perspective from a devil's advocate.
How many jobs are available in Gem Labs for credentialed Earth Scientists?
What do these positions pay?

If one spends several years acquiring advanced degrees in environmental sciences wouldn't they be wiser seeking positions with environmental companies?

I find it rather analogous to getting a doctorate in podiatry to sell shoes. Certainly, you would have a "foot up" in your profession, but.....

I think the industry needs to simply start training gemologists to use and understand sophisticated spectrographic tools as part of their curriculum.

My 2¢


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:08 pm 
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Are there any collages in the us or anywhere other than England that
Offer a top up year to make the FGA a bsc?

It's a very interesting idea :)

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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:14 pm 
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Not in the US.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:43 pm 
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Barbra Voltaire wrote:
A little perspective from a devil's advocate.
How many jobs are available in Gem Labs for credentialed Earth Scientists?
What do these positions pay?

If one spends several years acquiring advanced degrees in environmental sciences wouldn't they be wiser seeking positions with environmental companies?

I find it rather analogous to getting a doctorate in podiatry to sell shoes. Certainly, you would have a "foot up" in your profession, but.....

I think the industry needs to simply start training gemologists to use and understand sophisticated spectrographic tools as part of their curriculum.

My 2¢


I agree with you that the industry needs to start training gemmologists on advanced equipment as part of their curriculum. The treatments that are being done these days go well beyond what can be detected with standard gemmological equipment. Also needed... that the technology behind the advanced lab equipment become accessible (price wise) to you, me and Joe Gemmologist, otherwise we will end up as quaint relics. It will, these things always end up coming down in price eventually.

Then maybe we'll open our own gem labs...


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 7:09 pm 
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Just to clarify my motives:

The main reason I'm considering this option is that it offers me the fastest way to obtain a BSc (and after that, of course, an MSc, you gotta go the full length). Starting a new study just takes too long; this 2 year option is the most convenient in my eyes. I already did half the work by getting my FGA.

It isn't so much about learning more about advanced spectrometry... the chance that I end up in a gemology lab (paid or unpaid) anytime soon is slim and although the experience would be great, I don't think I'm good lab material. I enjoy myself way better in the field... I want to be out and about chasing rocks and am sort of eyeballing a job as a exploration geologist here in Aus, something that becomes way more feasible with a Master in Earth Sciences.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:49 am 
So you mean you would do the gem B(Sc), the gem Masters and then the Masters in Earth Sciences? Or do you mean just taking one Masters?

Either way, post-graduate university recruitment is not as formal as some people think.

Professors outside the mainstream 'degree mill' subjects (law, economic-business-management-whatsit) want to see potential, and people with genuine interest in the subject. Doing the FGA, writing gem websites, making optical equipment and rock-hunting all over the world etc. would display this, and any gaps in knowledge can be overcome with lots of extra reading, without committing a whole extra year to 'jump through recruitment hoops'.

You should chance your arm at fast-tracking to a Masters in whatever specialist you want to do. The FGA (which they are saying is 2/3 of a degree, I guess, if it takes one further year for a B(Sc)), plus all the other post-FGA activity should add-up to more than a B(Sc) in terms of knowledge base.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but B(Sc) pre-requisites are a formal way to 'sift' through applications easily in high-demand subjects, rather than an unbreakable rule. Many professors in proper subjects know what a bunch of *** many B(Sc)s are anyway, and have a large say in post-graduate recruitment (unlike undergraduate recruitment, which is more centrally-controlled with automatic sifts of A-levels, IB etc.), due to the high numbers and lack of variation in applicant's experiences (i.e. mostly just the high school conveyor belt).

I don't think the legitimate academic system (rather than the money-spinning degree mills) wants to see a motivated late-20s/early-30s applicant do a year in a lab course - an environment where he admits he doesn't really feel at home - in order to qualify on a paper-based technicality to study what he really wants to study in a subject which is only partly-related to his box-ticking B(Sc).

Either way, fast-tracking of course would not obtain the B(Sc) of course, but in the receipt of a Masters, wouldn't it become somewhat obsolete anyway?


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:44 am 
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Professors outside the mainstream 'degree mill' subjects (law, economic-business-management-whatsit) want to see potential, and people with genuine interest in the subject.


In the United States, it would be very difficult (understatement) to enter a Masters program in the sciences without a BSc. Perhaps, if one only had a BA (with a GPA 3.5+), it would be considered if they were willing to play a lot of catch up ball.

And in order to get a BSc in Earth Sciences one needs to fulfill requirements in chemistry, physics and calculus in addition to undergraduate classes in mineralogy, petrology, geomorphology, paleontology, stratigraphy and sedimentation, etc., with all associated lab courses.

I'm surprised it is so different in the UK.


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 Post subject: Re: Kingston Uni follow up course price drop for EU students
PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 2:20 am 
Barbra Voltaire wrote:
Quote:
Professors outside the mainstream 'degree mill' subjects (law, economic-business-management-whatsit) want to see potential, and people with genuine interest in the subject.


In the United States, it would be very difficult (understatement) to enter a Masters program in the sciences without a BSc. Perhaps, if one only had a BA (with a GPA 3.5+), it would be considered if they were willing to play a lot of catch up ball.

And in order to get a BSc in Earth Sciences one needs to fulfill requirements in chemistry, physics and calculus in addition to undergraduate classes in mineralogy, petrology, geomorphology, paleontology, stratigraphy and sedimentation, etc., with all associated lab courses.

I'm surprised it is so different in the UK.


I've heard of it happening, but it's not exactly common.

However, I do know of many people jumping across the sciences between B(Sc) and M(Sc) level. There may be some microscopic crossover, but the problems are still the same (lack of a past in the M(Sc) subject). They just had to read extra-hard around the subject before/during the M(Sc).

The high-BPA B(A) scenario you mentioned is similar. There would be absolutely no crossover at all in many cases, but the candidate would have shown a history of smarts and achievement to successfully play the "catch up ball".

Upon looking back at the syllabus for Kingston (for the first time in a few years), yes it has more earth science-related stuff than I remembered. I'd always just viewed it as 'that lab gemology B(Sc) course at Kingston', but there is some cross-over on the theory side of things.

He could jump straight into the second year of a B(Sc) in earth sciences somewhere. That of course will mean 2 years for the B(Sc) and 1 extra for the M(Sc) = 3 years.

Assuming the plan at the moment is Gem B(Sc) > Gem M(Sc) > Earth M(Sc), that is also 3 years (or maybe the "Earth Masters in Earth Sciences" he mentions is the Kingston Gem Masters, I'm not sure - that would make it 2 years of course, which is much more feasible).


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