As part of our Program Evaluation, we solicited feedback from former and current trainees via a comprehensive survey and 2 focus groups to evaluate the impact of the CREATE training on their educational experience. A “word cloud” was generated from trainee responses to the survey question: “If you could sum up MAGNET in three words, what would they be?” which excellently sums up their perspectives about MAGNET:
It is clear that the networking, collaboration and interdisciplinary aspects of MAGNET had the greatest overall impact on their educational experience, and that participating in MAGNET was a fun, unique and invaluable experience.
The trainees spoke most emphatically and widely about the benefits of MAGNET for networking and skill development, and in particular how unique this experience was compared to other graduate students and postdocs they knew. The top 3 trainee-identified training activities were the annual workshops, internships, and conferences (attended via MAGNET travel stipends). They also benefitted from the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) at UBC – a challenging and transformative way of teaching and learning.
Because the research projects of the different trainees spanned such a wide range of topics from low- temperature to high-temperature environments, from the atmosphere, ocean, and surface to the near- surface through the crust and the deep earth, they now have significantly expanded visions of the practical applications of geochemistry than would simply not have been possible without the MAGNET experience.
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