A dirty job but a sexy price tag

Jessica Shepherd kicks off a new series on popular courses by plumbing the depths of a Cornish tin mine.

Wanted: students of all ages. Must be willing to accept heavily subsidised trips abroad, salaries of £50,000-plus on graduation and be comfortable in a hard hat and wellies. It is no wonder mining degrees are not struggling to fill places.

What was once seen as a dirty, low-grade and rather political area of study is now one of higher education's most lucrative and popular subjects.

To find out why, I visited the UK's oldest mining department - Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall, which is part of Exeter University.

Bob Pine, the school's director, told me mining had "turned sexy". Dressed in oversized overalls and steamy goggles, I struggled to believe this.

Sexy? No. But atmospheric? Definitely. The lamp resting on my hard hat revealed jagged-edged tunnels seemingly with no return. All I could hear was a rhythmic drip and the tread of wellies on water. Yet this test tin mine is the biggest of its kind at a UK university.

About 100 students per week poke around it during term time. But they are just as likely to use a remote-controlled device for excavation as they are a drill.

As Professor Pine and senior lecturer Andy Wetherelt talked of field trips to Sweden and Alaska and explosions that uncovered minerals, I began to understand why this hybrid of engineering might just be "sexy".

Professor Pine said: "In the 1980s, with Thatcher and Scargill, mining developed a dirty name. Student recruitment struggled. We expanded to create geology and masters courses.

"But, in the past two years, things have really taken off. While in the 1990s we had 15 undergraduates, now we have 30 and could take 40."

This is mainly because mining worldwide has experienced a boom. There is a shortfall of 600 skilled workers needed just to replace those who are retiring, not to mention the numbers needed to aid the industry's expansion.

Those in the business for five years or more can command "telephone number"

salaries, Professor Pine claimed.

"We are constantly answering the phone to recruiters from the top mining multinationals asking us to give them our graduates. While they're on the phone, we ask them if they fancy giving us a scholarship or two for next year's students."