Over the past 9 months, I’ve been completing my third (fourth, if you count the placement year) and final year of my undergraduate genetics degree. The year consisted of five modules, one of them being the dissertation module, which for me began before I even had my first lecture of the year – it was an arid summer and I needed to sample some healthy leaves for my thesis! But my dissertation is a topic best left for a separate post. Being what it is, a project that forms a module that’s weighted twice as much as normal and lasts twice as long, there’s quite a lot to say!
A few weeks after my summer internship (and my dissertation sampling), my first module – Biodiversity and Conservation – began. This was a field-based module located in Pembrokeshire, Wales. I was in a new peer group for my final year, having taken a year out of the regular university schedule, and a week-long module forcing people to spend time with you is probably one of the best ways to get acquainted with new people! Since it wasn’t the whole year group, it wasn’t too overwhelming and was definitely a great way for me to settle back into uni life. In terms of actual content: we (humanely) trapped and released small mammals on site; performed a bioblitz on Skomer island; photographed badgers, foxes and a cat on a night vision camera trap; and did some good ol’ invert identification from pitfall traps in various forest stands. I unleashed my inner mountain goat (other comparisons included deer and frog!) exploring the rocky shore of a beach and had an evening at the pub and also by the campfire with the group. On one day I even stumbled across a very clean fox skull – a nice souvenir!
“There’s a unique feeling that accompanies these residential field trips… The travel, the communal living, the long hours in the field and lab… They are the highlights of my university experience”
There’s a unique feeling that accompanies these residential field trips, with the Cyprus trip and the Marine Biology module. The travel, the communal living, the long hours in the field and lab. Reminiscing is always clouded with nostalgia – if I think hard enough, I can recall the exhaustion – but all three of these trips succeeded in bringing me closer to my peers and lecturers and are some of the highlights of my university experience. I hope my career, or at least my personal life, allows me to relive that feeling.
Despite being thrown directly into the mix during BioCon, it was still tricky to adjust to being back at Edge Hill. The first hurdle being only knowing a few people, either from a year or two below or others that took a year off/were completing a masters; the second hurdle being settling back into classes and not a 9-5. This shift really started with Ecological Genetics, my first typical module of final year, and my only typical module in semester one. Ecological Genetics can be defined broadly as the junction of ecology, evolution, and genetics; the study of genetics within and between species in natural populations. The particular topics we covered were as follows: hybridisation, ecotypes, reproductive isolating mechanisms, cladistics, the species concept, and conservation genetics. Personally, the novelty of hybridisation; the structure of cladistics; the importance of conservation genetics; and the overall scale of the whole subject took my fancy. This is a topic that fascinates me for many reasons yet one I find difficult to wrap my head around. Everywhere you look there’s more to study – the past, present and future of all living species is concerned with the discipline!
Although I found settling into lectures and a new social circle tough, my real challenge was completing coursework. Both BioCon and EcoGen were assess via essays, both on a species (or taxon) and the nature of the module. As with Biogeography in my second year, many hours were spent researching the topic of my assignment and I largely enjoyed the experience. It was challenging (partially my own fault – I didn’t exactly start these essays early) but also deeply rewarding to learn, as best I could, the full depth of a single topic. The titles of my assignments for BioCon and EcoGen ended up being: “Uplands in Britain and Ireland and Management Implications for the Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus)” for the former and “Evolutionary History Of Quercus” for the latter. Earning around 69% each, I was happy with my first two assignment grades of the year. Nice.
That about wrapped up semester one – it ended up being a good junction back into uni life. Working as a Campus Communicator for the Campus Life team at Edge Hill alongside the semester also gave me a great way to meet some people and keep me from getting too relaxed! The modules, “Applications of Genetics” and “Genomics and Bioinformatics” were semester two’s modules and wow were they something – I hope you enjoy hearing about my experience with them when I have time to post the next update!
Feature image: Bosherston Lakes and Stackpole Court. Taken during Biodiversity and Conservation module, September 2018.
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