Why you should study Geology at Hull

I was reading this Guardian article by Joshi Herrmann on helping pupils at regular state comprehensive schools to become successful in applying to study at Oxford or Cambridge, and it seemed admirable. As someone from a regular state comprehensive school that rarely sent anyone to study at Oxford or Cambridge, I very much understood the sentiment and the pupils' perspectives, which haven't really changed in the quarter-of-a-century since I was applying to university. Social mobility? Schmocial mobility.

The Ivy League.
 

The thing that struck me most strongly as I read the article, however, was something that almost never gets mentioned, and which - if understood by university applicants - would completely overturn the premise of the article. It's also something that I've only really appreciated after 15 years of working in higher education and, in the last five years, in university admissions. It is this:

Many of the best places to study a subject are not the universities you think they are.

What the 'top' universities confer on you is not (necessarily) the best education in that subject. They may do, but what they often confer instead - sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally - is a caché, a status that, because you went to that particular university, you are - at least to some people - a more able individual than someone who did not. Sometimes that is true, but you just have to look at the incumbents of the current UK government to know it often isn't.

 

My subject is geology, Earth sciences, geoscience, whatever we're supposed to call it these days. I have taught it in six universities, four in England, one in Scotland, one in Canada. Three of the four English institutions belong to that abhorrent entity, the Russell Group, and are therefore top universities. The Scottish university is over 500 years old, and one of the Top 20 in the UK, according to the Guardian University Guide 2021. The other English university, and the Canadian one, do not have such glories bestowed upon them: they sit way down the wankings.

Yet if I was advising the 17-year-old me which of the six places they should study at, I would tell them first and foremost to be very careful about the publicized delusions of bestness. The quality of geological teaching at my two 'lowest-ranked' institutions was of the very highest calibre. Some of the best geologists I've encountered taught or studied there.

The first pupil mentioned in the Herrmann article is a girl who wants to study Earth science at Oxford. This is a perfectly* reasonable aim. Earth Sciences at Oxford is jam-packed with top geologists, and state school pupils should be properly supported to get a place there if the programme is right for them. What her advisor doesn't appear to know, however, is that she could get an absolutely cracking geology education at various 'not best' universities too. Plymouth, Leicester, Keele, Hull, to name just four (and upsetting various friends working in places I didn't mention).

This map is not helpful.

One day soon I'll write a proper blogpost about why Geology Hull is the best university geology programme I have ever been involved with, and why I am so sad that I voluntarily exited the university this summer. This will mainly be for the benefit of senior management, who are determinedly unable to recognize its quality, and support it (but you might also want to read our recent Soapbox piece in Geoscientist magazine).

Until then, I will temporarily - and without any official approval whatsoever - put my Director of Admissions for Geography, Geology and Environmental Science hat back on, and say this, to whoever might be listening, but particularly any would-be Earth scientists:

Disregard the rankings, and the notions of topness or bestness.

Consider lots of universities that teach the subject that interests you.

Have a look at what they teach, who actually teaches it, how they teach it.

If the available information is insufficient, or vague, or overly jargonized by the university's marketing team, get in touch with the admissions tutor and ask them your questions. If they're worth their salt, they'll be delighted to answer them.

Work out if it seems the sort of course for you.

Then, if you can, go and visit, have a look around, see what you make of the place. The teaching of the subject is vitally important, but you want to like the department, the campus, the town or city too.

Having done all that, you will hopefully have an idea of where you want to apply. For some of you, Oxford will be the best place to study geology. For others, it will be Hull.

And if UK higher education wasn't still so nonsensically stratified and overseen by a government determined to keep it that way, that would be something people would understand, write Grauniad articles about, and be very happy with.

 

Hats off to such deluded notions.

 

*As opposed to a 'prefectly reasonable aim' which is what I originally typed, and probably a more accurate reflection of the students applying to Oxford.
 

Comments