I started my academic life at Royal Holloway, University of London where I completed a BSc in Zoology. I gained a first class honours degree and spent my second year at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, as part of the study abroad scheme: probably the best decision I have ever made. I made a lot of good friends and had a really amazing experience.
Following this I headed back to my home town of Cardiff and after a stint working in a bar, doing some volunteer work with the National Trust, and heading to South Africa to participate in a volunteer research programme at Edeni Game Reserve (via GVI), I started working for Defra at my local Animal Health Office.
Two years later I had had enough of working in an admin role, even if it was vaguely related to farming and hence conservation, so I applied to the University of Leeds for the master programme in Biodiversity and Conservation. Choosing the Master of Research (MRes) programme instead of the usual Master of Science (MSc) I did fewer taught courses with two full-length theses, instead of the usual one.
After a failed attempted for a PhD that, looking back on it, I probably only half wanted to do, I got a job with Natural England as a Senior Land Management and Conservation Adviser. Now this was more like it. Not only was I getting paid to learn about conservation and land/habitat management but I also got to spend half my working life walking around farms talking to farmers and looking for opportunities to enhance the wildlife on the farm. A pretty good job that also included some 'training' opportunities that took me on two week long trips learning about upland farming and grassland ecology, as well as other workshops looking at wet grasslands and farmland birds.
I learnt a hell of a lot at this job. Not only about wildlife, habitat management and farming but also about what I wanted to get out of my career and what I was willing to do to get it.
So, after nearly two years in a well paid and really great job, I quit!
Signal, the next step in my varied work life: the Institute for Complex Systems Simulation.
I applied for, and got offered a place on the four-year PhD programme at the University of Southampton. It was the first year they had run the programme and I, along with 20 others, became the Southampton Complexity Science guinea pigs. As part of a Doctoral Training Centre, it is a four-year PhD programme with a taught year equivalent to a masters followed by a three-year research programme.
There are only three universities in the UK with research specifically related to complex systems; Southampton, Bristol and Warwick. Of course, the course at Southampton is the best :)
Pages devoted to the research that goes on as part of this programme, encompassing a wide range of departments and academics can be found here, on the Computational Modelling Group website.
So, after doing some pointless and dreary jobs, and having a sporadic education, I am finally on the way to getting that all important PhD!
Next post: my PhD research so far.
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