The Graduate School of the Environment
Sunday, September 27, 2009
I just got back from the first of my Renewable Energy MSc modules at The Centre for Alternative Technology and I’m feeling pretty blown away but utterly inspired in equal measure.
7 days straight studying, eating, sleeping and drinking with 79 really smart people that have a wide range of backgrounds covering a broad age spread. One thing is common, though. They all totally get the issues and challenges that we face surrounding fossil fuel usage and climate change and are there to find out more about the main (energy replacement) options open to us.
The facilities at CAT were excellent as was the quality of the lecturing with most of the topics being introductions to the various renewable energy technologies and their respective social and political contexts.
It was a pretty tough regime and this was just the intro module! I now have 2000 word essay and presentation to prepare before my next visit in 4 weeks. I think I’ve got a good essay subject it just needs some research to see if it’s got legs.
Thanks to Casey Cole for recommending me to the course, attending this week has certainly felt like a life changing event.
Posted in Bealers | Comments (4)
nick devlin says:
September 30, 2009 at 9:37 am
Darren,
Had no idea you were starting up at CAT. Welcome to the club… lets catch up soon.
nick devlin says:
September 30, 2009 at 9:38 am
I mean to add, always feel free to drop us a line if you want some help…
Phil Old says:
April 28, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Hi,
How is the course going? I’m thinking of applying to do this course this year and would like to know your thoughts on it, how it compares to a traditional university based course etc. I’d also like to know what the out of class work load is like as I’ll have to work while studying and will have to consider relocating from London.
Cheers!
Phil
Bealers says:
April 29, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Phil, I’ll email you.
In short I’m not doing the course any more. I’ve lots of reasons the biggest being that I don’t see myself working in the renewable energy sector as an engineer and I couldn’t devote so much time to a what is mostly just intellectual curiosity. I’m also more interested in the smaller-scale and it really covers much bigger scale (e.g. wind farms not single dwelling turbines).