What's It All About?

There aren't many other courses like this in the world, and it can be difficult trying to explain what science communication is because there's not much else out there to compare it too. People often project their own standards and expectations of the course because it is such a new and unknown area of study. This course is in it's infancy, it has some flaws. I can safely say that I and many others are absolutely loving it, but it is definitely not for everyone. It existed for about 10 years as a post-grad diploma, I am in the 2nd 2-year masters cohort. Because it is so new, some things are subject to rapid change and I would expect students in each year to have a somewhat different experience in the course. Is this good or bad? Who knows? But each year they seem to be working out more of the kinks and it is safe to say course develops a little more with each cycle of new students.

When considering the course, the important thing to determine is what you plan to get out of it. It's 2 years of your life and a whole lot of money, so you better make sure you know what the Masters Of Science Communication course is and is not.

Here are the basic details:

When you decide to do the Masters Of Science Communication at Otago, you are signing up for at least a 2 year course. There are 3 areas of study that you could be offered on acceptance into the program: wildlife and natural history film making, science non-fiction writing and popularizing science. There tend to be ~25 students per year with about 14 doing film and the rest split between writing and pop-sci. As of writing this (2010) I am in the second year of the film course working on my thesis film and my academic thesis.

The first year consists of 2 semesters of coursework. All 3 streams take a core class called based around storytelling. If our department has one thing that they are constantly drilling into us, it is the importance of quality storytelling in any project. Then there are more specific courses for each stream: non-fiction writing for the writers, film making for the film makers etc. Details of all of the papers are listed here on the official website.

A 1st year student will take a total of 5 papers, including the highly important SCOM 495. This paper is taken in semester 2 and it is important because it is the bridge to the 2nd year of the Masters. The purpose of SCOM 495 is to get a head start on the 2 essential components of the Masters Thesis: An academic paper and a creative component.

The creative component is either a 25 minute film (you are highly encouraged to work in a pair), a book (solo!) or some other kind of popularizing science project depending on your stream. So far there has not been much cross stream collaboration on thesis work, but the instructors have indicated that they could be open to it.

The academic paper supposed to have some kind of connection to the subject matter of your creative component. They say that it should be ~20,000-40,000 words, which apparently is less than a typical masters thesis, but this is because the majority of effort goes into the creative component.

At the end of the second year (many students go into the 3rd year to finish the academic part) you ought to be done, and you obtain the Masters Of Science Communication qualification. Great job! But you still don't have a real job, yet.

And that's the course in a nutshell. I will go into greater detail about specific aspects of the course in future posts.

Masters of Science Communication

Kia Ora

This is a blog about the Masters of Science Communication course offered at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand.

I am a 2nd year student studying wildlife and natural history film making. Hopefully this blog will be useful to anybody seeking information about the course, from a student's point of view. But I intend for it to be especially helpful for perspective students who are thinking of becoming a masters student here.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section or by email and we will answer them as best we can.