A Personal Perspective on Short Courses
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TIN/AUGUST1990
the MRS meetings, hâve suggested a new course which was implemented, and hâve begun a program at United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) of bringing short courses on-site. The MRS program of short courses is probably one of the largest offered by any society, and covers a wide range of materials-related topics. In addition to a large variety of topics, there are courses with a variety of "depths," ranging from rather gênerai overviews of an area (e.g., Optoelectronic Materials, Processes, and Devices) to in-depth instruction on a spécifie technical topic (e.g., Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy). My expérience with the MRS short course program has been uniformly good, and I consider the opportunity for continuing éducation that this program provides to be one of the most important functions of this society. (No, they didn't pay me to say this.) Since I mentioned on-site short courses above, I would like to discuss them versus courses given at meetings. Many of the benefits of on-site courses are to the group or organization, rather than the individual. One advantage is that if enough people attend, the cost per-person can corne down tremendously. The breakeven point dépends on how far you would hâve to travel to reach a short course being conducted during an MRS meeting. For UTRC, travel to Boston for the MRS Fall Meeting is not very expensive since we are in Connecticut, but the break-even point is still only about seven attendees. Naturally if you are further away, your institution's break-even point will be even lower. If you can fill a class (generally a maximum of 25), the cost per person for a one-day course is less than $200.1 consider that to be one of the best educational bargains around. The down side is that your management has to be convinced to spend a few thousand dollars at one shot for éducation. Depending on how progressive they are on continuing éducation, this could be a big hurdle. Another advantage of an on-site short course is that people will attend who normally couldn't or wouldn't. An example is technicians, who are generally not encouraged to attend meetings or take short courses. Whether technician attendance at an on-site course is appropriate will dépend on the depth of the course, but there are many cases where they dérive great benefit. By eliminating travel, you also attract the scientists and engineers who feel they do not hâve the time
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to travel to a meeting, or who are (dare I say it?) just a little bit lazy. A possible disadvantage to having a course on-site is that some of the attendees think of themselves as still being at the office, and can end up missing large parts of the class when they hâve to "fight fires." If choices in the attendee list had to be made due to great interest in the course, thèse half-participants are taking the place of someone else who would hâve derived greater benefit from being présent the whole time. One aspect of on-site courses that can be viewed in two différent lights is that you are attending this course with only your c
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