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Inaugural
professional science master’s degree class hits the ground
running
BY
MIKE UNGER
Photo by Dan
Fong
Rachel
Gorski, left, Michelle Chesnut, middle, and Courtney Elkins
conduct research at Evitt¨s Run in West Virginia. The
three are students in AU¨s new professional science
master¨s program.
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Even
when Michelle Chesnut, armed with an undergraduate degree in engineering,
was teaching classes for Microsoft certification programs, she knew
the environment was her passion. When she finally decided to make
a career of science, she was pretty sure that she didn’t want
to go into teaching or research.
An
exhaustive search for a graduate program that met her needs turned
up only one university: American.
AU’s unique professional science master’s (PSM) degree,
in its first semester, is designed to provide a viable option to
scientists who wish to pursue a career—and not more schooling—after
school.
“For
years the only thing for students with various degrees in science
to do was to go on and get a PhD, which is really unfortunate,”
said Larry Medsker, the program’s director.
That’s
why Medsker pursued—and landed—a $105,000 grant from the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the development of the new degree
program. For the past few years, Medsker had listened while friends
and colleagues from the business world bemoaned the lack of young
potential employees with solid science backgrounds.
“A
guy from Northrop Grumman told me he really had given up on universities,”
Medsker said. “He didn’t think students could solve problems
without answers in the back of the book.”
Medsker
spoke to faculty members to gauge their interest, and then approached
AU’s administration to win approval for the program. The program
had to be advertised, a curriculum created, and students admitted.
“It’s like starting a small business,” Medsker said.
This
semester, 11 students are pursuing degrees in one of three areas:
applied computing, biotechnology, or environmental science and assessment.
“I
think the course is effective for me because it mixes theory with
practical application,” Chesnut said. “Without the application,
I would not be able to apply this to real field work without further
instruction. It also helps to make the theory relevant.”
Students
must take 12 courses and complete an internship over the course
of the two-year program. Once a month leaders from the professional
world, many of whom serve on the program’s advisory board,
speak to the students about their own experiences.
Learning
is not restricted to the classroom. Last month, Chesnut and her
classmates went to Evitt’s Run in West Virginia, where they
measured pH, temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen, among
other things. They are learning how to evaluate rivers and streams
in order to analyze their health.
“My
professors try to prove something that actually is in environmental
science rather than lecture,” she said.
Medsker hopes to push enrollment to between 30 and 40 by next year.
“One
of the great parts is the cohort nature of the program,” he
said. “We have participants who get to know each other. It’s
a very powerful concept.
“People
might see this as an alternative to a MBA, or someone could get
in on the technical side and become a science writer. It’s
about applying science to all different areas of society.”
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