A Reflection on the Module

During the course of this year I have attended as many seminars as possible, all of which I have found extremely interesting (I think my favourite was actually one I didn’t even expect to enjoy) and I have doubtless gained a broader understanding of my degree topic by being introduced to ideas I wouldn’t necessarily have come across in other modules.

I also found the assignments to be a great help and particularly the dragons den exercise, to be a lot of fun. Whereas before I was probably quite underprepared for graduating university I now feel confident that I can write an effective CV and cover letter outlining my skills and relevant experience, successfully attend an interview and play to my strengths and pitch a business idea in front of potential investors.

The careers cafe was also extremely helpful as it showed me that just because I don’t have my future career sorted straight away after graduating, it doesn’t signal the end of the world, there is plenty of work for those who are willing to work hard for it.

Overall I feel that whilst most of university lectures have been about academia this module was focused more on what comes next and I feel much better equipped after taking it.

Business Plan Assignment

This assignment was fairly simple, to list each section that should be included in a business plan and detail how the knowledge of each of these sections will be useful to you in a future career.

Sections include the executive summary, business idea, organisation structure, products and services, sales and marketing, start up finance, people, SWOT analysis and financial forecasts. Although these are all primarily business related practices they have practical applications in many areas for instance an executive summary shows an ability to write concisely and to the point and organisation structure shows an understanding of man-management and effective delegation of tasks to a potential work force in future jobs.

I liked the assignment as it was straightforward and taught me to apply ideas in places where they might normally be seen as out of place.

Britain’s Lowland Bogs and the Chat Moss project

A lowland raised bog typically occurs in lowland areas on an impermeable substrate such as sand or clay, plant matter dies and goes through decomposition without fully decomposing which produces peat. Sphagnum moss find the acidic conditions of the peat favourable and as they grow in the bog they compress the peat and form a dome as the peat accumulates.

A recent seminar I attended given by Elspeth Ingleby highlighted the importance of lowland bogs for Britain’s biodiversity and gave examples of the ways in which schemes such as the Chat Moss project are helping to preserve and reestablish Britain’s lowland bogs.

A lowland bog in West Yorkshire

The importance of bogs can be found in their capacity to support many different species including breeding waders, wildfowl and many types of invertebrates. They are also extremely effective at absorbing and storing atmospheric carbon with around 20% more carbon capacity than our forests, this could prove useful in the fight against climate change particularly with many companies hoping to offset their carbon emissions by protecting sites such as lowland bogs. Peat bogs can also be effective buffers against potential floods are droughts due to their ability to soak up large quantities of water.

Unfortunately the business of peat extraction for use in gardening and the digging of drainage channels for agricultural purposes has led to a huge amount of destruction to natural bog habitats and a loss of the previously listed services that they can provide.

The Chat Moss project aims to secure the locations of several lowland bogs around the Manchester area and prevent any further damage being incurred upon these sites of natural beauty. Currently three sites are owned by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and work such as scrub clearance, blocking drainage ditches, removing invasive species and propagating the growth of sphagnum is being carrried out to ensure these lowland bogs recover.

I enjoyed the talk as it focused more on habitat improvement and preservation than some of the previous conservation talks, it was also a subject fairly close to home and I’m intrigued to go and visit the bogs myself.

Illegal Hunting and the Bushmeat Trade

The trade and consumption of bush meat has become a serious problem across many parts of Africa due in part to human population growth which leads to greater demand, open access to land with no clear ownership, a lack of education into the benefits of legally utilising local wildlife, low unemployment rates and low income, a lack of alternative food sources and no real consequences if caught.

A talk I attended given by Peter Lindsay, the director of conservation programmes at the African Wildlife Conservation Fund, addressed the problems caused by the illegal bushmeat trade and what efforts are being taken to combat these problems.

Currently there are minimal regulations concerning the hunting of wildlife for their meat with 100,000-200,000 wildebeest killed each year in the Serengeti alone and an estimated 5 tonnes of bushmeat passing through Paris each week for personal consumption. Clearly this is not a sustainable method of hunting  and something needs to be done.

Dik Dik meat being prepared for a market

Peter emphasises the fact that banning the hunting and trade of bushmeat has had and will continue to have no effect on the level of illegal hunting going on, clearly cultural attitudes need to be addressed and people need to be offered an alternative to destroying their countries’ wildlife for food. A co-management scheme set up between Zimbabwe and Frankfurt had some success in reducing hunting in the area by Frankfurt giving funding and assistance in order to set up a national park which encouraged tourism to the area and gave the local people a more sustainable source of income.

I enjoyed the talk and the controversy that it seemed to cause but I am very much in line with Peter’s way of thinking in that bushmeat trade shouldn’t be banned, it should be fixed. Obviously more education and providing a more sustainable way of living is preferable to punishing people for trying to get by.

Daphnia: Indicators of Environmental Health

In February I attended a seminar given by Professor John Colbourne on daphnia and how they might be used as indicator species to determine the presence of toxins in water sources. Daphnia are a genus of small planktonic crustaceans normally around 1-5mm in length, they are often more commonly known as water fleas and typically inhabit aquatic environments such as swamps, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams.

A species of the Daphnia genus

Professor John Colbourne works for Birmingham University where he holds the Chair of Environmental Genomics and is a founding member of the Daphnia Genomics Consortium (DGC).

The talk led off with a description of the current problem in California where tap water, despite satisfying the safe water drinking act is severally off colour and clearly contaminated with something we probably shouldn’t be drinking.

Our tap water typically contains around 60,000 chemicals, of which only 7% have been tested for their toxicity in humans, on top of this we also don’t know whether mixtures of certain chemicals could create toxins.

Tox21 is the initiative which was set up by pooling resources from several environmental and health organisations in order to screen thousands of chemicals to predict potential toxicity. As well as testing on mammals and using in-vitro cell-based assays the scheme also uses alternative animal testing on species such as daphnia, this greatly increases the amount of tests that can be done in the same amount of time than would be achieved using other study methods.

The talk was however, focused on the subject of environmental health and how daphnia can be an indicator of this by cataloging the effects of compounds on gene responses. By taking a water sample that includes daphnia, the RNA can be extracted from the organism which can allow the detection of certain compounds present in the water sample.

I found this talk extremely interesting as it highlighted a novel way to assess environmental health and ensure water is fit for human consumption. John also posed a challenge to the UK to improve the understanding of the function of daphnia genes and to understand model systems of environmental health.

CV Writing Assignment

Perhaps the most important part of applying for any job is your CV, this is the factsheet about you which your potential employer reads and will decide off of this whether or not to give you an interview.

When I was assigned to update my CV and submit it along with a cover letter for a job we would be interested in I realised just how outdated mine was. When writing it again I tried to look at it from the employers point of view and gauge what kind of attributes they would be looking for, I made sure to emphasise how possessed analytical and time management skills, was an effective team worker and was capable of analysing situations to come up with effective solutions to problems. I also made sure that all of these skills were backed up by real life experience that I had gained either in employment, volunteering or in day to day life.

I writing the cover letter for the job I made sure to specify the reasons for me applying to the particular job, stating my passion for the subject and also making sure to include how I could benefit their team.

Dragons Den Assignment

The day began with us again being grouped into different teams and given the brief that we must develop a working business idea around either improving Treborth botanical gardens or improving Brambell museum. We were to then create a short advert for our idea and present it in front of the class and also the watchful eye of the “dragons” local business leaders who would assess the validity of our plan.

We worked together well as a team and came up with the idea of setting up a bee farm at Treborth and selling locally produced Welsh honey, I think everyone in the group contributed different ideas to this plan and we all listed different aspects of the business such as the team, opportunities, risks, customers, competition and so on which allowed us to consider the amount of work and thought that goes into the creation of a business.

Our plan was to set up hives in the already established botanical gardens of Treborth, we would collect and package the honey on site to be sold to local businesses, shops and farmers markets. The plan also included setting up and running a cafe at the gardens to encourage visitors to the site, serving them with honey-based products. Visitors would also give us an opportunity to offer bee keeping courses to paying members of the public, increasing our potential revenue. We also decided that profits from our company should go towards helping the conservation of bees as this is a currently growing problem in the UK and we felt this would increase our selling potential as it gave us a unique selling point.

The task was a great way of expressing our creativity and all the members in our team seemed to relish the chance at creating a business and brand despite the short time limit we were given.

Once we had filmed our advert (One member of the group holding up a jar of honey whilst describing the benefits of buying ethically sourced, local honey) we presented our pitch to the group of dragons. I thoroughly enjoyed giving our pitch as I really believed in the idea and I think the dragons must have too as they agreed that our group had come up with the best business plan.

The Careers Cafe

The careers cafe was an event held in January which gave us the opportunity to meet, listen to and ask questions with some Bangor University graduates who had gone on to pursue different career paths in the field of biology.

The first speaker of the day was Dr Ross Piper who attained a degree in zoology at Bangor before completing his PhD with more of a focus towards invertebrates. He has since gone on to produce and work on several different books and biology based television programs. He recently presented the BBC show “Wild Burma: Nature’s Lost Kingdom”. This was of a specific interest to me as I was personally a big fan of Dr Piper before attending the event having watched several shows he worked on and read some of his books.

Next to give their story of employment after graduating was Cherry Shacklady who had previously worked as a zookeeper before graduating from Bangor as a mature student. After completing her degree Cherry decided that teaching would suit her and took up a PGCE course, since then she has gone on to become the head of biology at a school.

Another ex student of Bangor to share their success story with us was Nia Jones, who had, whilst working on her undergraduate and masters, volunteered with the Wildlife Trust, an organisation which promotes conservation in the UK. Since finishing her degree Nia is still with the Wildlife Trust but now as a paid employee rather than a volunteer.

Naomi Willis had graduated from Bangor University and gone on to finish her PhD here, after which she landed a temporary job at Welsh Water. Whilst this wasn’t in her original career plans she found that she actually greatly enjoyed the job and went on to apply for a permanent position as a healthcare scientist. Naomi’s story is a sign that despite not always going to plan, a job search can sometimes lead us to something we enjoy despite never expecting to do so.

Finally, Imogen German gave the last talk of the day, having only graduated from Bangor a few years previously. When Imogen first left university she didn’t have a clear idea of the career she wanted but ended up travelling and volunteering with several conservation projects around the world. Since then she has returned to Bangor and is now teaching alongside working on her PhD, Imogen’s story shows that even without direction we can find the path to our careers.

Despite an originally bleak outlook of my future career I found the careers cafe really helped to focus me and give hope that anything can be achieved with the right amount of hard work and determination.

Conservation and its importance at Chester Zoo

In December I attended a seminar by Dr Mark Pilgrim, the director general of Chester zoo, on what Chester zoo is doing in terms of global conservation.

The talk began with a brief introduction to Chester zoo which described how it is one of the top zoos not only in the UK, but worldwide. Chester was named as one of the top 15 zoos in the world by Forbes in 2009 and whilst being almost entirely self funded, it employs over 300 people.

Although due to funding the zoo must constantly strive to attract visitors the main mission statement is “To be a major force in conserving biodiversity worldwide”. They stand by this statement as as a result are involved in numerous conservation projects worldwide and have had a large impact on the preservation and protection of many species. An example of this work would be the breeding programs set up alongside other BIAZA (British and Irish Association of Zoo’s and Aquaria)  organisations including that of the Mauritius Fody, an endangered bird endemic to the island of Mauritius. With help from breeding programs set up by Chester zoo there have been successful reintroductions of this species.

The Mauritius Fody (Foudia rubra)

Zoos are also important in their work they do with the general public, it is important to educate people and inform them of the importance of having a planet rich with biodiversity. Visitors to the zoo are also often responsible for donations to conservation projects which makes a huge difference, around £1 million is donated by visitors to Chester zoo each year.

This seminar by Dr Pilgrim was highly interesting and informative, I learnt a lot about Chester and zoos in general including the work they do in the reintroductions of endangered species. I found it helped in work I had to do for other modules as it gave me a broader knowledge of a large topic.

Assessment Centre Workshop

The assessment centre workshop was a method of examination which involved placing us into groups and simulating the environment of an assessment centre which we are likely to encounter upon leaving higher education.

The day began early and started with being assigned to a group with four other students, after which five rounds of five minute interviews were carried out. Each member of the group had a different role to play in the interview process in separate rounds, including interviewer, interviewee and scribe. This gave us all a chance to encounter the sorts of questions that we are likely to be asked when applying for jobs and gave a wider understanding of just what kind of answers the interviewer is looking for.

After the interview questions the group conferred over what the grade the interviewee should receive and this was a good chance to apply peer reviewing skills and evaluate your own performance as well. The task was useful but could have perhaps been improved by giving the interviewee a specific job description as it would have made answering some of the questions and applying real life experience a lot easier.

Following on from this was the opportunity to take a series of self perception tests which were designed to tell you more about yourself but also give you an insight into what kind of worker you are, your strengths and weaknesses and how you would benefit a team. This was an interesting task as it gave me a clearer understanding of how I work.

The final task of the day was to work in the same groups as before and rank a series of emails by order of importance using the information given to us in a brief. It gave us a chance to engage in discussion and work as a team to assess the priorities of the mock company we were behind. This task showed me how delegation and time management skills are very important factors in a big company.

At the end of the workshop we were told that, similar to how a real assessment centre would be run, we had been assessed throughout the day from the moment we arrived to the moment we left. The workshop helped because not only did it give me an opportunity to work on my interview skills it also gave me an idea of how an assessment centre works which will stand me in good stead when it comes to future job hunting.