Confchem 2000

Response to question from Willis Weigand on the paper "Igniting students....."

Willis Weigand asks:

Do all universities (colleges) in the U.K. have the same type of undergraduate chemistry program as Oxford regardless of size? If so, how do the smaller departments deal with the research component? If Oxford is unique, how are the degrees awarded at other locations absent the research component?

Oxford is unusual in the duration and depth of the research component. Most (?) other Universities have courses which incorporate student projects, but the research projects are commonly a few weeks or a couple of months long, rather than one year.

There has been some rationalisation of chemistry departments in the UK in recent years, in response to a move by students into more sexy sciences (dare I suggest that chemistry is not sexy?) and into IT. This has lead to the closure of a few of the smaller departments, and attempts by many others to set themselves apart from the crowd by offering specialised courses.

UK Universities are not large by US standards - Oxford currently has an enrolment of around 17,000 including postgraduates. There are not many equivalents in the UK to the Liberal Arts Colleges in the US, in which there may be only a few faculty members in a particular department. Here most chemistry departments comprise at least twenty faculty, almost all of whom (in principle!) are active in research; many departments are much larger. Thus the provision of suitable research space, projects and supervision should not normally present difficulties, whether the undergraduate projects last six weeks or nine months.

Assessment of projects is a matter for each University. In those cases where the project forms only a minor component in the course, it contributes just a small proportion of the final mark.