Catherine Salinas has taken three Earth and Ocean Sciences distance education courses over the last two years, and plans to take a few more in the upcoming Winter term. With a “busy and demanding day job, the format was great for me,” explains Catherine. Currently living in Ontario, the distance education format was the only way that Catherine could have taken the courses through UBC. “While I have since had the chance to visit the campus while on vacation, it’s not a practical option for me [to come to campus] every term!” Living in Eastern Canada, Catherine was also appreciative of the fact that she could “enroll, pay fees, and order books quickly and easily without having to step foot on campus.”

Two of the courses that Catherine took, EOSC 314: The Ocean Environment and EOSC 315: The Ocean Ecosystem, were based on oceanography. According to Catherine, both EOSC 314 and EOSC 315 have “made me much more aware of the ocean, its chemistry, processes, plants, and animals.” Catherine found that the courses “explained many concepts that I had seen/knew of growing up on the coast.” One thing that particularly stood out for Catherine in her EOSC 314 course was her study of “the Leeuwin Current (off the West Australian coast where I had grown up).” The Current is relatively unique and Catherine “chose this for [her] final term paper and got to delve into it in greater detail.” By doing so, she found out that the Leeuwin Current provides “excellent conditions for Western rock lobsters and relatively southern coral reef formations.”

In her other course, EOSC 114: The Catastrophic Earth – Natural Disasters, Catherine learned about the causes and physical characteristics of disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis. The course consisted of “online quizzes every few weeks, followed by an exam.” Catherine found that the course has made her more aware of the “natural processes affecting the earth,” which have been particularly useful with the recent events happening around the world. She explains that “during the time I have been doing these UBC courses, there have been a number of incidents in the news – including major earthquakes, mudslides, storms, and the gulf oil spill. I definitely feel I have a much better understanding of what is occurring and the impacts of the events. I have seen the “experts” explaining these events on TV and recognized/understood many of the diagrams, concepts, terminology being discussed. Most of these have had negative impacts and it hasn’t been good to see these occur, but I at least feel more informed.”

When describing the interaction level between herself, her classmates, and the professor, Catherine found the discussion forums on the WebCT Vista course website to be quite useful. Catherine noted that at the start of each class, the discussion level “tended to start off a bit slow, and then a couple of weeks in, people would start using the discussion forums more. Our professor and TA’s tended to be very responsive and helpful, responding to questions or posting notices (in addition to sending emails, so they could be sure we were aware of any important notices).” Even though she never set foot on campus during her courses, Catherine mentioned that she felt she “got to know [her] professor and some of [her] other classmates via the forums and emails.” Catherine also found the WebCT Vista environment to be reliable. “Any planned outages were well announced…and it allowed me to plan ahead if I knew the service was going to be unavailable for a few hours on a weekend (when I did a lot of my work).”

With the distance education format, Catherine was able to study around her work schedule. She was “appreciative of the schedule (assignments etc) published at the start of the term” as this allowed her to “plan for the times I’d have assignments (especially if I knew I had work commitments around the same time, I’d know to start my assignments earlier!).” Needing only a basic Internet connection to log in to her course, Catherine found that she was able to continue her studies, even when she was half-way across the world. “I traveled for both work and vacation, and was able to do everything literally anywhere. I flew to Australia during one of my terms and remember working on an assignment on the plane ride and submitting it from an Internet cafe on the other side of the planet! There is no way I could have taken a 3 week trip and kept up in the course without the distance education option.” Able to balance her work, vacation, and school work (while living in Ontario and traveling to Australia), Catherine has indeed benefited from the flexibility of the distance education format.