Last Saturday, I attended the NSCC Open House at both COGS and Middleton. The event is designed to provide information on the programs at all NSCC locations in the province.
Aside from going online, my approach was to pick up the one page description for each program. Depending on previous education, a student can obtain a certificate, a diploma or a graduate certificate (click HERE for 2025-2026 program list).
Certificate (2)
GIS Technician
Survey Technician.
Diploma (3)
Geomatics Engineering Technology
GIS – Cartography and Geovisualization
IT programming
Graduate Certificate (4)
Geospatial Data Analytics
GIS – Remote Sensing
Marine Geomatics
Geographic Information Systems
At the Middleton campus I had hoped to obtain an update on the Applied Geomatics Research Group (AGRG) and the relationship to the post-graduate degree in Applied Geomatics at Acadia University. The focus of the open house in Middleton, however, was on the trades and nursing.
At COGS, there were some displays on visualization and the application of drone technology.
My time at COGS covered the period 1980-1988, when the college had three departments: Computer Programming, Surveying and Cartography ( including Planning). Later, I returned to establish AGRG (2000-2011).
With hindsight, it is remarkable that the college has been able to maintain its excellence in GIS, Remote Sensing, Surveying, Cartography at a specialized campus, in rural Nova Scotia, within the NSCC.
The one question that remains for me, as we approach fifty years in the application of geomatics technology:
“Why has this centre of technology education excellence not translated into a centre of excellence in the application of these tools for municipal government and landscape management?”
Through a ‘community information Utility’ or as a part of ‘the creative rural economy‘? We are still missing our ‘sense of place’ and the optimization of our unique landscape/geography.
Postscript
Andrew and Chelsea from the Library put together an excellent historical map display in the COGS board room, based on the Walter Morrison collection. I met David Woolnough, past-Principal at COGS, and Monica Lloyd, Academic Chair at COGS, at the Open House.
Ernest Blair Experiment 