An important part of any study abroad program is the integration of its participants into the host country’s fabric of daily life. The Division of University Studies' Manchester Study Group (MSG) offers its members the opportunity to continue their Colgate programs by taking four courses and living with British students at the University of Manchester (UM). Registering as non-matriculating students, study group members are guaranteed full access to the University's libraries, Student Union, health services and sports and fitness facilities.
Over a decade's worth of student evaluations shows that one of the most valuable aspects of MSG is the opportunity to study at an outstanding British university, so different from Colgate in the diversity and size of its student body, its extensive curricula and location. Approximately 12,000 students study at the university, which comprises over 70 academic departments. The richness of academic offerings has been one of the MSG’s main attractions. For example, over the last 3 years credit has been earned in the following Colgate departments:
Art History · Biology · Chemistry Classics · Computer Science · Economics English · Geography · Geology · History Mathematics · Music · Philosophy Psychology · Religion · Sociology & Anthropology · Women’s Studies
The University Theatre, home to the professional Contact Theatre Co.; the Academy, offering almost nightly music events; and the impressive Whitworth Art Gallery are all located on the main campus. The university's proximity to the city center allows easy access to a variety of cultural amenities available in this city of half a million. Manchester is also a convenient jumping off point for excursions to London, Edinburgh (regular train service to either takes just over 3 hours), and beyond. As part of the 2010 program, the study group will experience the wilderness of Mt. Snowdon in North Wales as well as the scenic beauty of picturesque villages along Yorkshire’s “Heritage Coast.”
The 2010 program will be the 22nd group of Colgate students to enroll at the University of Manchester. Its director, Dr. Paul Pinet, is a member of the Geology Department and a contributor to the CORE curriculum through the Scientific Perspectives program, Core 152, and Core distinction.
Academic program
All students will enroll in two elective courses and in two required courses, which are designed specifically to reflect the study group’s unique location.
1. CORE 316Y: Technology and the Human Prospect. Technology has suffused all aspects of modern life. Important technologies reinvent what it means to be human, as they influence and control how people perceive and understand themselves and the natural world, both its living and nonliving entities. Today, the imperatives of technology and the pervasiveness of the human-built world continue to create novel possibilities for human activity, expression, creativity, and belief, while simultaneously reconfiguring the ethos of people. For example, industrialization in Great Britain during the 19th and early 20th century necessitated widespread exploitation of natural and human resources for the manufacturing enterprise. Suddenly, the wilderness was regarded as everything not modern and technological – land, biota, and even working-class people – and was treated as something that possessed no inherent value except as a resource base for the British Empire. These rational and technological perspectives have since become the principal intellectual approaches for answering questions about cultural, social, economic, and ethical values, and even about ultimate meaning. We will strive to uncover how human perceptions and values have changed as technical development has progressed into the 21st century.
Because this course will carry a CORE Distinction classification, it is expected that all successful applicants will have completed their CORE requirements by the end of the Spring 2010 semester.
2. UNST 324Y: The History of Technology, Science, and Culture in Manchester. Beginning with an intensive two weeks involving several all day trips in the north of England and one overnight trip to Wales, this course takes a highly experiential look at the evidence of how technology and science changed Manchester, the first industrial city in the world, and by extension, changed the way we all live in the industrialized modern age. At the end of September when the UM fall semester begins, this course will meet once a week through the end of November and will include guest lecturers and seminar discussions. The group will visit an operating textile mill at Helmshore; the site of the first commercially smelted iron in the world at Ironbridge; the Leeds Liverpool Canal and its system of canal locks; the Albert Dock, at Liverpool, a primary nineteenth century port for cotton and emigration; North Wales and its early 19th century bridges and aqueducts; and a slate mine near Mt. Snowdon that provided Victorian Britain with its roof tiles. Students will be assessed on the basis of their participation in seminar discussions and a semester long research assignment that will include a preliminary and final presentation of their findings and a 15-20 page paper on their topic. Taught by Professor Joseph Marsh, historian of science and technology.
3. & 4. Two Courses from the University of Manchester's Visiting Students' Handbook. To complete their program, students are invited to choose two courses from offerings that satisfy individual interests or Colgate concentration requirements. Colgate maintains a list of courses from Manchester that have been accepted for concentration credit in the recent past, but a student wishing to count one or both courses toward a concentration must make individual arrangements with the appropriate Colgate department, in close collaboration with a concentration adviser.
Living Arrangements
Students live with other UM students in residence halls. Each has a single room that is part of a 'flat' of six or seven other singles with a shared sitting room, kitchen, and bathrooms. Students purchase and prepare their own meals.
Estimated extra costs
Costs above Colgate’s tuition include room and meals, airfare, and necessary out-of-pocket expenses. On the average students can expect to spend $2,000 - $3,000 more than a semester on campus. These increased costs are used in calculating the aid packages of students who receive financial aid, provided this is their first study group experience.
Students who are planning extensive personal travel will need to increase their budget accordingly.
Estimate of Student Expenses
Calendar and deadlines
Two information sessions will be held , one during Wednesday, October 28 at 7:00 p.m., and the second on the Tuesday Free Period (11:30 a.m.) on November 3, both in 238 Ho. Applications are due by November 20 and should be submitted to the Geology Department office in Ho 220.
Finalists will be interviewed before the end of the Fall semester and notified of decisions by mid-January, 2010. Students must confirm their acceptance to the study group by Monday, January 25, 2010. Orientation sessions will be scheduled during the spring semester.
Participants should plan to arrive in Manchester no later than Thursday, August 26 in order to begin the academic program on Monday morning, August 30. The UM semester ends Friday, December 17, 2010.
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