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I believe my placement year was the most pivotal part of my degree, I wouldn’t be where I am if I did not undergo a placement. I took my placement year with the University of Glasgow at one of their field stations, the Scottish Centre for Ecology and the Natural Environment, near Loch Lomond. I was a research assistant aiding master and PhD students with their projects based around fish acoustic telemetry studies. It was during this time I developed a passion to study and conserve marine life. I then dedicated my final year to gaining as much aquatic/marine experience as I could.

There were three field trips that I was a part of during my undergraduate studies. Visits to the Eden Project and Slapton Sands provided me with the knowledge and experience of studying the natural world and efforts we can take to conserve areas of ecological significance. I also underwent a field trip to the Azores, Portugal where again we learnt about the variety of differences between island ecology and details about the islands that have caused nature to grow in a particular way. I learnt a lot about how to work with local communities for the betterment of science.

After I graduated, I enrolled on an MSc Conservation and Biodiversity course. After my masters I got an internship with the Red Sea Project, where I spent a month performing turtle and coral surveys in Egypt, performing outreach and learning how to dive. I thankfully got the opportunity in 2023 to join Three Shires Ltd. as an Assistant Ecologist, this position is giving me professional real-world experience that I can hopefully bring to conservation projects around the world.