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By GeographyJobs.com
February 27, 2012
Over the past few months, I’ve outlined some of the online options available for post-graduate GIS education. However, if you are serious about a full-time post-graduate diploma, there is an amazing program producing top talent for relatively inexpensive tuition that you should know about, but probably don’t. With good reason, it’s in Nova Scotia. I was researching Canadian GIS post-graduate programs for our Canadian site, GeographyJobs.ca. I began with a look into the Advanced Diploma in Geographic Science at The Nova Scotia Community College Centre of Geographic Sciences (NSCC COGS). I spoke with several people about the program, but two in particular from ESRI in Redlands, California illustrated the strength of the program. If you want a career in GIS, their program is definitely one to consider.
First I’ll outline what COGS has to offer before I go into my discussion with the ESRI professionals. The COGS Advanced Diploma is really intriguing because you can follow any one of three flexible pathways depending on your area of interest.
1) Remote Sensing
2) GIS
3) GIS for Business
All three of the above share a common first term to lay a foundation of fundamentals. Once the first term is complete, each student gets individual attention from instructors about how to structure their second term so that the elective courses chosen will satisfy diploma requirements and reflect the student’s area of interest. It’s important to note that the program at COGS changes to address industry and has done so since the 1980s.
The program lasts about nine months. Tuition is approximately $3,800 for Canadian residents and essentially double that figure for international students (Canadian funds). If you are thinking you might supplement your living expenses with a part-time job, the program states that there really is not much time for it given the demands on your time for classes, labs and course work. Those that teach the program make sure that entrants understand what will be expected of them. Students will spend 22 to 28 hours per week in lectures or directed labs. Reports can be anywhere from 5 to 100 pages in length and are expected to be of post-graduate or Geomatics industry-standard quality. The program is taught in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, a very small town in the Annapolis Valley.
So there’s the synopsis, but what separates this program from the rest? I spoke with several people about the COGS program and it was clear from all accounts that it produced talented GIS professionals. However, it wasn’t until I spoke with people from ESRI, the world leader in GIS software products that I realized just how successful the program was in this respect. Matt McGrath is a program manager in software products, specifically dealing with geodatabase development at ESRI headquarters in Redlands, California. McGrath currently supervises nine COGS graduates on his team. He noted that COGS graduates make excellent product engineers because they have spent so much time using the software, they can act as ideal user-advocates as they test new programs. He spoke to the reasons COGS GIS grads have done so well; “I think there are two things fundamentally, one is they start with degrees in related fields. You’ve got people who have degrees in fields such as physics, geology or computer science. Then they go for eight months and do this intensive program, with the (ESRI) software, understanding it. Plus, they’ve got a good mindset. They’re encouraged to figure things out on their own – they’re really self-reliant and self-directing.” McGrath mentioned that the ESRI Human Resources department has identified COGS as one of the top two or three schools in terms of the quality of hires. Not one of the top two or three from Canada mind you, top two or three – period. This helps to explain why they’ve hired more than 70 graduates from COGS over the past several years.
One of these graduates is Craig Gillgrass, a senior product
engineer on ESRI’s geodatabase team in Redlands. Craig gained a little
bit of knowledge about GIS as he earned his degree in geology. Upon
graduation he began work at a mining company where he realized that GIS
was his main interest, not geology. So he left the mining company to
further his education in GIS. I asked him what his motivation was to
move out to Nova Scotia to take the COGS program. He said that a friend
of his had already graduated from COGS and successfully found a job in
California. “If I could sum it up really quickly, I heard there was this
school on the East Coast that if you went there and did well, you could
get a job in California. That was my main goal.”
I wanted to know
how he felt the COGS program prepared him for life at ESRI and he echoed
McGrath’s sentiments, “COGS could not have done a better job preparing
me for this line of work. The main thing you learn coming out of COGS
is how to solve problems.”
What does it take to be successful in the program? Gillgrass continued; “You get out of COGS what you put into it. A 40-hour week is what you need to probably scrape by. It really prepares you for the workforce in that way. When you’re trying to get stuff done and you’ve got a number of projects on the go at the same time, we were easily putting in 60 to 70-hour work weeks.”
While this may seem like an awful lot of work and time to invest, both the location and structure of the program make it easier to make this investment. Gillgrass noted that while Lawrencetown is a friendly place, it’s very small and people that come from large cities can initially experience a bit of culture shock; “But it’s good because it really lets you focus on the work and learning as much as you can as opposed to getting distracted by other things. At the same time though…there’s lots of hiking and biking trails. It’s a great way to break up the week by spending a Saturday hiking out to Cape Split. There are definitely ways you can relax and unwind, but at the same time, because of where it is located it really does let you focus and get down to business as much as you can. ”
The structure of the program also helps to ensure you get the most
out of your time in Lawrencetown; “There’s a great support structure at
COGS. When I was there (10 years ago), we had a lot of people (in the
class) that did not have a lot of programming experience. They weren’t
ready for the intensity of it. As opposed to university where you are
left to fend on your own, at COGS it’s very different. The instructors
and administrators are very interested in people being successful.
They’re not interested in throwing you into the fire without any
help.”
From everything I’ve learned through my research, COGS
appears to have a unique program. If you’re serious about a career
involving GIS, GIS for Business or Remote Sensing and you believe you
are up for challenging, intensive full-time program, I encourage you to
look further into the COGS program.
Further reading:
http://www.cogs.ns.ca/