How I Got to Study Marine Biology_ Part 2

<v Speaker 1>And Sarah, and I'm studying at Masters by Research, specializing
<v Speaker 1>in marine biology. I went to a little village primary
<v Speaker 1>school up near Wales where I come from, called Drive
<v Speaker 1>at primary school, and then I went to the local
<v Speaker 1>secondary school, and then I moved again for sixth form
<v Speaker 1>and I went to a grammar school for my sixth form,
<v Speaker 1>all up by where I lived. My gcss were triple Science, English, Literature,
<v Speaker 1>English Language, Maths and then I did history, Food, Manufacturing, Technology,
<v Speaker 1>Spanish and Art. My A levels were Chemistry, Biology, Physics
<v Speaker 1>and Maths and general studies. So when I came to university,
<v Speaker 1>I had a plan. I knew I wanted to go
<v Speaker 1>into research in marine conservation, but I didn't realize what area.
<v Speaker 1>So I didn't realize how interesting I would find seagrasses
<v Speaker 1>until I actually started studying them. So I decided to
<v Speaker 1>go to university because I wanted to study marine biology.
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to go into research, and to do that
<v Speaker 1>you need to have a degree in the field. Although
<v Speaker 1>I have chained specialty. So I knew I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>go into research, and I knew I wanted it to
<v Speaker 1>be in like field work and marine biology and marine conservation.
<v Speaker 1>But I didn't realize that I actually found sea grass
<v Speaker 1>interesting until I started studying them. I thought they were
<v Speaker 1>quite boring, but they're actually quite fun. So I decided
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to do marinebology because I started scuba diving
<v Speaker 1>and I wanted to integrate the scuba diving with the science,
<v Speaker 1>and so marine bology was a pretty good subject for that.
<v Speaker 1>And then I just went around looking at different universities
<v Speaker 1>that offered it, and then I started looking at what
<v Speaker 1>I liked about them, what they were offering that I
<v Speaker 1>was sixteen and I went on holiday to Gozo and
<v Speaker 1>we were on a boat going through what they call
<v Speaker 1>the inland sea, so it's like a lake connected by
<v Speaker 1>cave to the sea, and I saw all these scuba
<v Speaker 1>divers going underneath the boat and I was like, that's
<v Speaker 1>really cool to my mum. And then I saw them
<v Speaker 1>again a different group obviously later on going for a
<v Speaker 1>night dive when we were out for a meal on
<v Speaker 1>the seafront. And then the following year we went to
<v Speaker 1>Cyprus walk past the dive center and I was like
<v Speaker 1>and I was like, do you want to give it
<v Speaker 1>a go? And I was like, no, I don't want
<v Speaker 1>to because I was kicking out and I got scared,
<v Speaker 1>and then last minute I turned around, we got halfway
<v Speaker 1>back to the car and I was like, actually I
<v Speaker 1>want to try it. And on my last day over holiday,
<v Speaker 1>I did a try dive, which way you go for
<v Speaker 1>just like one short dive to see how you feel,
<v Speaker 1>if you're comfortable, if you enjoy it, and I fell
<v Speaker 1>in love with it, and I just kind of went
<v Speaker 1>from there and now I'm a dive master and I
<v Speaker 1>can teach it. My course involves some field work so well.
<v Speaker 1>My master's involves pretty much all research. So I do
<v Speaker 1>a literature review where I study the background research of
<v Speaker 1>what's there currently and then I say what I'm doing
<v Speaker 1>that's different, and then I do a lot of field
<v Speaker 1>work to collect that data and write it up then
<v Speaker 1>as a big dissertation that sometimes depending on what you've done,
<v Speaker 1>we'll get published in different sections. The first year involves
<v Speaker 1>a lot of biology because it's the same course for biology,
<v Speaker 1>marine biology, and biochemistry, so it's a very generalized one.
<v Speaker 1>And then you start to specialize a bit more on
<v Speaker 1>marine organisms and there adations, and then you focus on
<v Speaker 1>like lab work and how to improve your lab skills
<v Speaker 1>and how to write those up in a report. The
<v Speaker 1>most enjoyable part of my undergraduate du is probably in
<v Speaker 1>the second year. We do a residential field course where
<v Speaker 1>all the lectures come and we go down to Slapton.
<v Speaker 1>I think they're now going to Mexico or Spain, so
<v Speaker 1>we didn't get quite as glamorous, but we get You
<v Speaker 1>get to know the lectures a lot better. They start
<v Speaker 1>to then know you by name because they then spent
<v Speaker 1>all those days with you, and you work on projects there.
<v Speaker 1>So you get given a research project and you just
<v Speaker 1>a small one. So we had Rocky Shores and we
<v Speaker 1>went out and looked at Rocky Shaws and then gave
<v Speaker 1>a presentation on it to the rest of the group.
<v Speaker 1>I've done mountaineering and rock climbing society, so I learned
<v Speaker 1>how to rock climb. I don't need that for a year.
<v Speaker 1>And then I also started horse riding. So this year
<v Speaker 1>I decided I wanted to learn how to horse ride,
<v Speaker 1>and I just decided to start lessons. It went from there.
<v Speaker 1>I fell off a couple of times, but you just
<v Speaker 1>get back on. Going to university isn't just about doing
<v Speaker 1>a core modern just doing your union words, because it
<v Speaker 1>really helps you get to know new people. When you're
<v Speaker 1>picking a DCCs, something that you love, something that you're
<v Speaker 1>good at, and something that you think is going to
<v Speaker 1>be useful. No matter what course you do, it's not
<v Speaker 1>so much about what specific subjects you learn within that course.
<v Speaker 1>It's about the skills that you develop during the course.