Investigating fire studies in the United States

Created date

Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - 9:11pm

The number of tertiary level subjects related to fire that are available in the United States far outweigh what is on offer at universities across Australia. To investigate how these subjects are taught, the students that take them and what careers they can lead to, I am on a six week fact-finding mission up and down the west coast of the United States.

This research is being funded by a 2012 Gottstein Fellowship, the Bushfire CRC and the University of Sydney and I will be visiting a range of universities in California, Colorado and Arizona.

I can already discern a difference in the expectations of students graduating from different universities. Students choose the courses they do and the subjects they take according to whether they want to work in fire management agencies as wildland firefighters, to enhance their current career trajectory, or to pursue further research such as a PhD. As expected, cost of tuition, location of the campus, university entrance scores and lifestyle each have a role in choices made.

Tina is project leader for the Fire in the Landscape projects.

Our views: Opinions, perspectives and insights

shadow-b.png
Tina Bell's picture
Project Leader
shadow-b.png