stephpoole Well, I don’t know where to start.
After a superb summer it was difficult to return to land and reality to stick my nose back into the books, journals and articles to crack on with my final year at HAU. 5 years had seemed to go so quickly yet I didnt want it to end.
In September, I returned to HAU to reunite with my fantastic housemates for the final year of our journeys together before we are set free into the world to make our changes and impacts. to say we started off running is understating it. We kicked off the year, most of us with deciding upon our final year Thesis ideas and titles to get cracking on the upcoming research we would all have to undertake. like the majority of my cohort I had spent the previous year during my Industrial placement working through ideas of what I would like to focus on for my Honours Research Project (HRP), however there were a few hiccups along the way which altered my plans, however I achieved what I set out to do! my HRP is a whole other blog story so keep an eye out for that.
Angelsey Trip November 2019
In November, the 4th year students from the Countryside, Wildlife & Geography Courses, traveled to Anglesey, Wales. A Small Island off the northwest coast of wales. To conduct our Field Exercises for our year. Split into groups of 4, we were tasked to create a survey project, plan and execute it.
Our Group decided upon testing pH levels in the soil within and around the Pine Forest to determine if one or two of our hypothesis were true. 1. Did pH levels change further inland from the shore line, and did the levels of Pine needle coverage on the ground affect the pH levels. To do this we decided to plot out a set of GPS coordinates within the woodland which follows a straight line from the shore line, heading into the woods, to cover each section of density of pine forest.
Christmas & HRP Deadlines
after our Anglesey Trip the Looming deadlines of our HRP Literature reviews along with our own assignments was nearing, and it was getting pretty tough to juggle everything. – in Final Year I found it very difficult to create a space to study in, with everything that had already happened that year concentration and sitting still for long portions of time was not an easy goal.
My Most comfortable spot to study and write my assignments was in our Lounge, however as it was a communal lounge which I shared with my 3 other beautiful housemates, having the perfect study area didn’t last long. The Library although now open 24/7 (Woo!) was a no go for me, the mix between too quiet that it makes the library eery and just enough chatter that its not loud enough didnt sit right with my brain and I usually ended up being more distracted.. (my fault Im too nosy for my own good). So Late night studying became my thing. where I could use the lounge freely, have the tv and the perfect sound level and all my notes in the right places. Finally… I could focus.
Projects in a Pandemic
As most 2020 Graduates would have lived through it, Im not going to go in to great detail about the Covid Pandemic, its still really too soon. However the start of the Pandemic in the UK left me in an unusual and irritating scenarios left, right and centre.
To begin January 2020 through to March 2020 saw some fantastic storms however with that it brought a truckload of rain – meaning deploying my HRP Project was a no go until the rivers returned to non-flood-risk behaviours. Finally the weekend of the 7th & 8th of March came around, Beautiful blue skies, no rain for two days my HRP was officially launched with my first weekends worth of collection…….and my last weekends worth of collection, as that next week the Pandemic hit the UK meaning all Field Projects were CANCELED for the forseeable future!
….BUT hey!….
Im a student and final year student I was sure that I could find a way round to make my 48hours worth of collections in two sites give me some sort of data! so I spent the next week stuck inside the labs, attending lectures when needed but all my free time from opening to closing was spent in the Lab. by the second half of the week I had fully developed my filtering systems and although slow I was on the way. then BOOM! ALL LABS ARE CLOSED! due to limiting the number of people in labs all undergraduates were no longer allowed to use the Labs even for important things like their HRP! no problem, I could work this out. so with two days left of working in the labs I worked from open till close and sometimes a little after to get all my filtering done. however I still needed access to a microscope and other lab equipments. this was fine to take back to the university accomodation a few tweezers, a microscope, water bottle.
Then Harper Adams University Closed – The UK went into its First Lockdown, and I had to move back home to Suffolk.
But no problem the University Laboratory staff were amazing and they let me take all the equipment home with me, to then return when Summer Ball happened in June.
May/June 2020 Final Year Exams.
With no ease of the Lockdown 1.0 insight the University made the decision to change all exams to open book assigment style exams, where instead of giving us 3 hours, we were given 30 days to complete 5 exams – easy right?… eh NO! if you remember from a few paragraphs up where I described how difficult it was to focus unless I had THE perfect circumstances, lets throw a deadly virus, heatwave and limited internet connectivity into the mix! oh and lots of surrounding family members.
To Graduate or Not Graduate – That is the Question!
With an extension on both my Exams and my Dissertation, it meant that receiving my results was also extended from July to September! Although it was only two months it felt like a life time! I didnt know the exact date in which they would be released as Covid was pushing important result meetings further and further back!
I finally found out and I have officially after 5 years Completed my Bacherlors Degree WITH Honours for Wildlife Conservation with Natural Resource Management with a 2:1!
I was so proud of myself, and grateful for everybody who has entered my life and helped me in my journey over the last 5 years. Although I cant celebrate it properly (silly old covid again) I will hopefully be able to walk in Cap and Gown in September 2021!
So What do I do now? start an ResM, MRes, MSc? head out into the working world? Take a long break? Its September 2020, 9 Months into what is quite possibly a very important year for history. So I only had one question to ask myself.
