Dissertation SMdB done. Operation Ski China Thesis commence.

A snowHead

Hello,

I am a 4th year student at St. Andrews University and have managed to pluck a dissertation topic that enables me to ski for the month of January. My title is yet to be finalised but is going to be something along the lines of “The formation of a British expatriate community in St Martin De Belleville and their impact on the town.” The study is going to be primarily based on data gathered through interviews....this is hopefully where you guys come in. Do the Snowheads know of many people who live in St. Martin or have second homes there?
Any hints or suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

Cheers, Gavin

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Nothing to help - but you lucky b*stard. My dissertation involved 6 weeks in the Scottish highlands, looking at rocks and being eaten by midges...

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pam w, Or do you mean "that requires sitting in bars chatting to people every evening in Jan"
gdizzle, sorry can't help but sounds a fun project!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

pam w, I do, you're quite right.

If you are a resident of St. Martin and are keen to give a motivated and driven student 30 minutes to interview you it will make said student's life much easier. I'd also be hugely grateful and would be more than willing to provide vin chaud, beer or if you're so inclined an option of Jäger or tea/coffee.

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davkt, Having proposed "informal conversations in bars and on chairlifts as the main data gathering techniques" my tutor didn't deem these as suitable as I did, and as a retort suggested I generate data through "semi-structured interviews, focus groups and a bit more commitment"

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haha, this is so cheeky, pardon creative:) Well done!

After all it is free

Yes, my friends don't seem to have clocked the idea that a dissertation is an excuse to not do proper work, some of them are actively pursuing grim options such as "sewage channels in Dundee" and "housing tenure in Glasgow".

Thread of the week. No question.

Good luck gdizzle, I reckon you'll go far.

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God it's definitely time I went back to University...

Sorry this post also isn't helpful is it!

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Chasseur, I'm glad you think I'll go far. Graduate employers seem less keen unfortunately. Perhaps I've found a niche in the market compiling long pieces of work on topics that have no impact on the world...oh wait, through my reading at university I think that niche has been filled more times over than is believable.

I am delighted by the enthusiasm for this thread but wouldn't mind some gem coming out of the woodwork with a comment along the lines of. "Yes, I've lived in St. Martin for 25 years and would be delighted to aid you in anyway possible". A boy can dream...

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I suggest finding a few independent chalet companies with chalets in St Martin that target brits. Chances are they live in the area, even if not in St Martin itself. I know of a couple a little further up the valley.

gdizzle, brilliant stuff and hope it goes well, a definite 1st heading your way

Of course you'll be wanting your sample population for interviewing to not be skewed, and so at other end to the snowheads suggestions spectrum perhaps you can call in a few favours from your St Andrews contacts, you know who I'm thinking of, a loverly young couple...Hope it goes well; I suspect once you are out there you'll find plenty of folks to chat away to. Presumably you're going to be talking to the natives too re the impact bit?

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Good to see those high education standards being maintained in the UK Laughing

Just do what most smart students do for their thesis.

Make it up wink

A snowHead

Whitegold,

welcome back

missed you

insightful as always Very Happy

A snowHead

gdizzle, ...er just a couple of thoughts....not meant to be a bucket of cold water...if you are being serious, a point to note is that (i) it's not really a town. Brides Les Bains is just about a town. St Martin is not. (ii) there's not really a British ex-pat community at all, at least there wasn't when I've been there staying with a French friend who has a house there, but things might have changed in a couple of years...

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

gdizzle, valais2 makes a valid point there..... could you switch locations to Chamonix?

And can you speak French? Asking locals in English about the impact of the Brits might not be the most tactful idea.....

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gdizzle, Not sure how big the permanent ex-pat community is in St Martin - for the 3 valleys, biggest year-round concentration is probably Bozel, and maybe Les Allues.

There's an ex-pat community here in Villarlurin (3 families) Cool

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Thanks valais2 and pam w. There's been a lot of housing creation recently of which Brits have purchased a significant amount. There are also other British families who have been settled in St. Martin for several years so I'm confident I can produce a legitimate piece of work. We have a small apartment in St. Martin, which is what has inspired the study and which is why it's not really possible to move elsewhere. My French is basic at best but I've made enquiries with members of the tourist board and they seem happy to help. The main purpose of the post was to see if any snowheads were residents of St. Martin and if they'd be happy contributing or if anyone knew people in St. Martin who they could send my way.

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Patch, one of the aspects I didn't mention in the initial post was that it's the impact of a seasonal community on the town, it doesn't have to be permanent residents. Thanks to everyone for all the input! Little Angel

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While I admire your initiative I've got to say your supervisor is pretty weak if they accept this as a topic. Never having visited St Martin (only driven through) I can predict the outcome already -

Old boy farmer - Bof and a shrug of shoulders
Village Mr Big - We welcome all Brits (as he owns half the property and rents to punters and/or TOs)
Brit "resident" - well I'm only here for the skiing it's too dead out of season
Other Brit "resident" - We get on fine with the locals (for the 4 weeks a year they are there)

Does St Martin even constitute a sample size - what is the permanent year round population? How many Brits live there year round who don't own/run a hotel/chalet?

After all it is free

My dissertation is entitled "Sexual preferences of single middle-class females within the Eurozone: Does austerity matter in an Alpine environment?"

If anyone knows of any single girls from within the Eurozone who have access to accommodation in a major alpine resort featuring a king-size bed and a hot-tub and who wish to be part of an important piece of research, the results of which will be published in the letters sections of respected peer-reviewed international journals such as Hustler, Private and Men Only, please get them to contact me.

The science has to be respected.

gdizzle,
If you join this FB group (Face book BASIMembers group ) there are about 1,500 members of which (total guess) about 2/3 are really BASI members and some of them do live in sMdB, so you could post the same question there. Having said that, don't worry about sorting it prior to arrival, just go and sit in a bar in Jan and you'll meet loads of Brits.

I wish I had thought of sitting in a bar chatting to people for a month. My last thesis was titled, "Proposals for the morphology of non valenced orbitals". Mind you, looking at it now I can say with some pride that it is the biggest loads of bo***cks ever written – got to be worth something that..

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gdizzle, Maybe you need to change the topic a little bit then? I remember that they don't appreciate at all if the thesis covers other things (though of course they can be mentioned) and drifts from the stated topic, no matter how well researched and written.Tourists and season workers are not exactly ex-pat community, so you might need to work around this bit. Also, since St.Martin de Belleville doesn't qualify as a town, you can use the particular region in the Alps in the topic and narrow it down in the thesis by using St Martin as example.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

for ex pats ... try mountainexpress.co.uk. ... they moved to st jean / st martin and set up their transfer business about 10 years ago. Rob Smart founder of meribel unplugged is a mine of information on the area of St Martin.

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gdizzle, could you broaden it out to the impact of the seasonal population on the town? That would be more interesting. The true "locals" will, I would guess, be fairly few in number and the "ex-pats" in the season will include a lot of French. In the small place where I have an apartment the permanent population is around 175 but in the season it's hugely more. A Frenchman with whom I had French conversation lessons told me a lot about how this worked. He was from northern France and contrasted his "neighbourly good relationship" with the guy down the road, who owned a small grocery shop, with their complete lack of any real connection or common interest. He had an Indonesian wife and an adopted black child and his experiences of the way they had been received were also highly relevant, not to mention depressing. The small genuinely local population seemed to include a lot of people who voted for Le Pen and who thought people from Haute Savoie were bloody outsiders, not to mention people from the Pas de Calais or New Caledonia. Their perpetual war with the mayor of Hauteluce was more important to them than the marginal - very marginal - impact of Brits.

It was fascinating for me to hear all this and they were ideal topics for my level of French, as the vocabulary isn't difficult.

He was a very cultured and well-read man - another area in which he found he had very little in common with the locals.

Isn't this the chance for a fluent French speaking Snowhead with time on their hands in January to offer their services?

Might be interesting to visit out of season too - would give a clue as to how transient the ex-pat community really is. And the locals left behind might have different point of view when the money isn't rolling in.

Good luck - sounds perfect.

You know it makes sense.

Thanks for the steer, Wayne...

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

gdizzle, we stayed at the Chalet Alice Velut in St Martin, it's over the piano bar and is run by an English family, who were very nice and helpful to us during our stay.

Have a great month, aren't you lucky!

A snowHead

Well done for wangling skiing out of it, what course are you studying?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Hi Gavin,

I have sent you a PM regarding this, hope the dissertation is going well!

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This is an amazing thread.

Whitegold as always hits the nail on the head.

Do 5 interviews. Make up 15 more...

I wondered at school (while making up geography results) WHEN people stopped making up results. GCSE? A Level? Degree? Masters? EVER?

Can safely say that you do not stop making up your results for a degree. Took me 3 days to do 7 of my required 50 transects. Luckily I was going away on holiday soon so spent my transatlantic flight head down making up results. Normally distributed, statistically significant, enought interesting anomalies... BOOM.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Agree with kat.ryb, 15 mins once at each location counting cars rather than an hour x 3 times at each location for Geography A-level. 5 survey responses multiplied by 10 for my dissertation.

My grades in both were however equally disappointing (that's a slight lie I actually got a good mark for my dissertation it was the rest of the course I bummed).

I'm quite impressed gdizzle, has been to see his supervisor already. Mine thought I'd met some terrible injury/accident earlier in the year as I didn't introduce myself until just before the Easter hols.

Good luck sir.

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I have family just down the road in Saint Jean de Bellleville... if that is any help!!

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I've been gone from snowHead

for too long and felt I should return to this thread. My idea was slammed by some, applauded my a few and envied by many (I think). The title of my disseration ended up being "Perceptions of Stakeholders on the Impact of Tourism and Development in the Belleville Valley" and I ended up with a 2.1 so all in all I think I can declare it a success. Thanks for the help and suggestions from you lot, i didn't mention it in my acknowledgements, maybe I should have.

I just thought I'd take to the forum to recommend any young snow heads thinking about dissertations to do it on something ski related if you can. If you do end up going for it feel free to get in touch and I'd be happy to give advice if I had any.

Now onto my next project... I'm currently doing a masters in China in International business and feel a viable masters thesis could revolve around the development of tourism in China, especially ski tourism. If anyone has any suggestions... Twisted Evil

After all it is free

I've had a quick look into visiting Tibet and I think it's quite complicated getting a visa to tibet if you're in China on a student visa. Incredibly keen to take the train from Shanghai to Tibet once I finish at university in Ningbo.

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Ping Tian Resort.

There's a book in there let alone a thesis.

Help!!

Dissertation SMdB done. Operation Ski China Thesis commence.

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