This guest blog is from Hannah, a final year BSc (Hons) Ecology and Wildlife Conservation student. She tells us about her time spent on placement working in the Falklands Islands on a conservation project. 

I’m from North Wales, I started studying BSc (Hons) Ecology and Wildlife Conservation at BU when I was 22 after spending a few years trying to work out what I wanted to do. I am so happy I choose to study ecology and BU have been amazing at supporting us to find exciting opportunities.

For my sandwich placement I went to the Falklands Islands to work for a conservation organisation there called ‘Falklands Conservation’. My work there varied hugely but mainly I was a field assistant for expeditions on a few different projects. The two main projects I worked on were penguin & albatross conservation, and peat monitoring. The work consisted of lots of bird population counts which often meant you would be visiting amazing cliff side colonies. For the peat monitoring project we got to island hop to remote islands to take samples, living on a yacht for up to a week at a time. I absolutely loved the field work, being out in nature surrounded by incredible animals and plants is something I will cherish forever.

There were challenges to the work, it was lots of long hard days, often in harsh weather and challenging terrain. But for me this added to the excitement.

During my time in the Falklands I learnt more than I ever thought I would, the experiences and wisdom shared with me there was invaluable. I think it has helped me prepare for future jobs in a huge way, gaining confidence in my scientific knowledge and field work skills.

After graduation, my aim is to try and work in more polar remote regions. A dream role would be to work on research projects in the Antarctic and South Georgia. I would also love to do a masters and possibly one day a PhD.

My advice to people thinking about studying Ecology at BU would be to think about what you want from the future. If you are interested in learning amazing things about ecology, science, animals, plants and the world in general this is the course for you! I have learnt so much over my few years at BU and being able to get support to go to the Falklands is something I will be grateful for forever.

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BSc (Hons) Ecology & Wildlife Conservation