Blog over and out for 2015-16

Hi Everyone!

I hope you are all good and your exams went as well as you’d hoped, if not better!

This is me signing off the Manchester Life Sciences blog for the academic year 2015-16! Today is my last day as an Intern for the Faculty of Life Sciences, and I can’t quite believe how fast this year has flown by! I’ve really enjoyed reading the blogs from our very talented student writers.  I can only hope that you’ve enjoyed it too!

Big thanks to our student bloggers for letting us follow your stories. Their enthusiasm for the university and the city of Manchester has really shown through their writing, making me all the more miss university life and wish I was a student here again!

In fact, I think my favourite job as part of my internship this year has been running the student blog. I love hearing about the different experiences each student gains from university life here. It’s also interesting to compare the bloggers experiences to my own time as an undergraduate life sciences student at The University of Manchester! It really shows the variety of opportunities there are available to get involved with here, academically and socially, within the university and/or the city in general.

Here’s a little photo recap of the year from each of our bloggers:

And not forgetting the placement students!

Miss Mycology 2015/16

You can read back over their blogs from the year using the menu above.

The aim of the Manchester Life Scientists blogs is to give all life sciences applicants a taste of what it’s like to be a student here at The University of Manchester. After all, this could be you in a few months/years time! I hope that we have achieved this, and you can see how fun and rewarding it is to study here!

And to those graduating – congratulations and good luck with whatever the future may hold for you. Remember, if you’re not quite ready to leave The University of Manchester but want some professional experience in a field relevant to your desired career path, you can always, like me, apply to an MGP! There are lots of positions available for a variety of sectors. And trust me, you’ll get so much out of it!

Me after my first week with my new staff card!

Good luck with your applications!

Alina

Digital Media (Recruitment) Intern

 

 

 

Harriot’s Placement Year Blog

Hi everyone!

My name is Harriot, and I am a Medical Biochemistry student currently on placement at an agency called H4B Manchester, which is part of Havas Lynx – a leading global healthcare communications company. H4B is a company that aims to improve the quality of life of people with an illness, by combining pharmacology insight with consumer thinking by talking to real patients in order to look at all the things that make us human.

I love my course, but I have never really been interested in a career in research. However one of my main goals in life has always been to help people and make a positive difference to the lives of others in one way or another. I of course understand the importance of research, and that the breakthroughs made lead to helping people all over the world. However, I’m a sociable person who likes to be involved in discussion and debate. I am also quite a creative person, and I thoroughly enjoyed studying art and design at A-level. I knew that I needed to use my placement opportunity to explore alternative career options available to a life sciences graduate. After browsing the available placement opportunities, the Havas Lynx Enterprise placement appealed to me the most. So I was very excited to be invited to interview!

I was given a tour of the office and I was made to feel comfortable and welcome by everyone that I met. I knew straight away that this was the sort of place I would like to work – so when I received the call to let me know I had been selected, I was over the moon! They told me that I would be included on the 2015 graduate scheme, so I was very pleased to find out that I would be starting on the same day as quite a few others; I wouldn’t be the only new girl, which was quite a relief. I was originally a little nervous, but really excited about the year ahead. The scheme kicked off with a company arranged ‘Freshers’ Week’ – a fun-filled, jam-packed week of skills development and team building exercises.

Where it all began…

Lynx Freshers’ Week activities – Geocache, Breakout and rounders!

Points meant prizes in Lynx Freshers week!

Working at an agency, life is fast-paced. Throughout this year I have never felt like a placement student – I was treated as a valued member of the team from the start, gradually being assigned more and more responsibility. And I loved it! However before I knew it, it was January and I was no closer to deciding on a project title. As much fun as I was having, the whole outcome of your placement is to produce a project report of the year!

Following some discussion with my placement supervisors, we decided that I would write up a project that we had been collectively working on, The World vs. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) – an initiative created to help make the everyday lives of people living with MS that little bit easier. I have been heavily involved in the social media aspect of the initiative, community managing the social accounts, speaking with people living with MS and building a community to help support them. It has been an absolute privilege – it‘s so great to see our work really making a difference to people’s lives.

My other daily tasks typically include a lot of emailing, phone calls, meetings, generally coordinating and collaborating with the team to make sure that work gets done, and done well. My official job title is ‘Account Executive’. It is the accounts team’s responsibility to ensure that the team is aligned and motivated to help create the best outcome for the clients, and therefore for patients. However, throughout my time on placement I have had the opportunity to learn about a variety of job roles through both working with my team and other teams – collaboration is key to the success of any agency.

The final major part of the graduate programme is ‘Worksmarts’ which will be held just before my placement finishes at the end of June. We will stay off-site for three days of intense activity designed to challenge, test, and stretch the skills we have been developing over the past 12 months. We will be working in teams to develop ideas, which we will then be pitching back to some of the company directors – which is both exciting and a little daunting at the same time! As part of the graduate scheme, we are expected to develop a specific set of behaviours that will help our personal and professional development. These behaviours include: curiosity, personal credibility, drive to deliver, collaborative and consultative. We have had to self-evaluate on these behaviours, as well as eight specific deliverables (understanding the agency, quality control, financial and time management, science, strategy, creative, technology and client services) and I personally feel that I have come so far since starting at H4B.

We are definitely rewarded by the company for all the hard work we put in! I would be doing Havas Lynx a disservice if I failed to mention #LYNXLife. This concept was developed some years ago in an attempt to maintain the original culture that was felt in the earlier stages of the agency’s lifetime. From the smaller weekly perks like breakfast Mondays (free breakfast – pastries, fresh fruit, bagels you name it), and office dog days (employees are allowed to bring their dogs to the office, it’s amazing) to the more extravagant soirée’s. Since I started working at Lynx, we have been for a number of team meals and activities such as ‘Break Out’ and ‘Geocache Manchester’ which involved a sort of treasure hunt in which we had to answer questions related to particular location checkpoints around the city centre.

Some pictures from our yearbook – a montage of #LYNXlife

Office dog Friday (Romeo the ultimate boss featured right)

We also celebrated our achievements at the #LXAcademy Awards which was held at the town hall last month – an extravagant black tie event with special guest speakers, great food and dancing. My team swiped an impressive three awards overall (best motion, best pitch and grand prix) which of course we were thrilled about. May 2016 was important for Havas Lynx; it was the company’s 30^th birthday. We started the day with a live Q&A session and talks from some inspirational guest speakers. Following this, we had great food, delicious cocktails, and endless fun in the photo booth. We celebrated 30 years of with performances from a live band and DJ. An incredible day spent with some incredible people. To top it all off, we got to witness one of my colleagues Chris crowd surf which was hilarious! My motto ‘work hard play hard’ definitely applies at Havas Lynx. We stay late, and work through lunch breaks some days too. But our work ethic just emphasises the fact that we are passionate about creating the best work possible for our clients, and in the long term bringing about the best outcomes for patients, which is very rewarding for us.

We had a blast celebrating Lynx’s 30th Birthday!

My experience of working in a professional business environment has taught me so much. Being surrounded by such talented, experienced and inspiring individuals has helped me grow on a professional and a personal level. I feel so lucky to have found a placement that was so perfect for me. I have built working relationships and made friends for life.

If you are a hard-working, motivated, sociable individual that is ready to get stuck in to the working world, but are not sure that a lab based placement, or permanent graduate role is for you, I highly recommend an enterprise placement with a company like Havas Lynx!

Thanks for reading! Good luck with your placement applications.

Harriot Mather.

Lucy’s Third Year Blog

Well hello again, and hello for the final time!

I’m very sad to say that this is my last blog; so much has happened this year and it’s absolutely flown by! Despite all the horror stories that you hear about the stress of third year, it’s actually been my favourite yet, for both my course and for my life in Manchester. I’ve met so many great new people since September, and I’m absolutely gutted that most of them will be graduating and leaving Manchester in a couple of months. Not me though – I’m sticking around for my Masters project!

The last ever night together with the senior ambassador family, featuring our beloved Professor Liz Sheffield

I’ve spent a big portion of this year carefully planning my big research project, so it’s crazy to think that I’ll actually be starting it in just a few months. I’ve settled on one of the two projects that I planned (not an easy choice when you really want to do both); I’ll be looking at “the effect of interleukin 27 on the metabolic profile of CD4⁺ T cells during Plasmodium yoelii infection”. Sound exciting? No? It sounds pretty awful actually doesn’t it? Let me explain.

A T cell-fie with my favourite immune cell

In simple terms, I’m going to try to find out how one of the many signalling molecules in your immune system (IL-27) controls your immune response against malaria infection (caused by Plasmodium parasites). We know that this signalling molecule can down regulate the aggressive immune response (involving T cells) that your body mounts against malaria, but we don’t know how it does it. Everyone has heard of how devastating and deadly malaria is, yet the fatal damage caused by malaria is actually due to the way your immune system responds to the parasite. When infected with the malaria parasite, your body must mount an aggressive inflammatory response in order to clear the parasite from your blood. However, if this response is not switched off, it can cause fatal self-harm to your own tissues. If we can try to work out how the body can switch off this response, we might be able to better treat malaria in the future, reducing the associated mortality and morbidity caused by it. Sound better? I hope so! I cannot wait to get going with my project and spend a whole year carrying out in-depth and worthwhile research, focussing on something that I’m fascinated by. If parasites aren’t your thing, don’t worry; the faculty has hundreds of different labs working on pretty much any field of Biology you can think of, and with the MSci programme, you can choose which of these you’d like to work in!

In my last blog I told you about the MSci Experimental Skills Module. This was a really intense month of lab and field work as part of a small group, followed by a lab report, a group scientific poster and a poster presentation. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t stressful. It was a lot of work in a very short space of time and we were working right up until exams, but it gave us a great chance to develop our essential research skills for next year. I’ve received some really positive and encouraging feedback on my work, so at least it was all worth it! I even managed to talk about microscopic nematodes (I swear I can relate ANYTHING to parasitology). Have a look at my previous blog if you’d like to know more about the project.

My last piece of coursework for third year featuring one of my many thousands of microscopic nematodes!

Right now though, I’m writing this blog to distract myself from the fact I’m halfway through my 5 essay and problem-based exams! I really like the units that I’ve chosen this year, so I’m at least finding the revision interesting. Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that exams are horrible. Although, I can find some solace in the fact that these are my LAST EVER EXAMS! Even though I have one year left at university, my fourth and final year just involves an enormous write up at the end, but no exams. I sat my first two exams this week and I think they went okay. By the time this has been posted, I’ll have finished my exams; now that’s a beautiful thought. If you have any exams at the moment, I wish you the best of luck! Don’t stress too much – it’ll be over before you know it!

I might have had 4 coursework deadlines and 5 exams in the past 6 weeks, but don’t think for one second that that’s stopped me from having fun! Oh no, we can’t have that! This month I jumped out of a plane with my housemate, raising over £1000 for charity – and I didn’t die! Sadly, I didn’t manage to get any action shots with my face flapping around as I plummeted towards the earth. I’d rather you didn’t see that anyway. I’ve also recently been to two music gigs in Manchester, one at the Manchester Academy at the Students’ Union to watch Kygo, and one at the Manchester Arena to see Busted (yes, I’m a loser but my 9 year old self just couldn’t pass on the opportunity); both were amazing! I’ve had a couple of BBQs; one with the senior ambassador and admissions team at Professor Liz Sheffield’s house, and the second in 28 degree heat with my housemates, my best friend, and her puppy (yes, 28 degrees in Manchester).

Celebrating NOT dying in a skydiving accident AND raising £1000 in the process!

I took a trip to the year 3000, and then to see Kygo

Not to mention, there’s plenty going on after exams. All of the final/third years sit the same final exam, so we all finish together. It’s a morning exam so we’ve decided to head into town afterwards and have a big brunch with lots of prosecco, then we’re heading to my friend’s to carry on the celebrations, and then back into town again. We’re definitely going to need it! The week after that we have the Life Sciences ball at the Midland Hotel; it’s themed “The Oscar’s”, so I’ve bought a ridiculously extravagant dress for it. Then, the day after that it’s Pangea, a huge festival held at the Students’ Union at the end of each semester, which is attended by thousands. Every Pangaea has a different fancy dress theme; the theme this time in “Carnival”, so I’ll be spending lots of time in the run up covered in glue, sequins and feathers whilst I try to make myself an outfit that the girls of Rio de Janeiro would be proud of. Although, I’ll probably end up looking more like a sparkly peacock that’s been in a fight. The week after that I’ll be jetting off to Barcelona for even more fun with my oldest course friends. Exams don’t seem quite so bad when you’ve got all that to look forward to.

Well, that’s about all I have for you this time. Thank you to my loyal readers for taking the time to hear about my life this year (that’s if I even have any loyal readers?! I don’t know). I hope you’ve enjoyed my ramblings! Writing this blog has really made me realise more than ever just how amazing both the city of Manchester, and the University’s Faculty of Life Sciences are. I’m so proud to be a student here, and I can’t wait to see what my final year brings.

Ciao for now,

Lucy

Rachel’s First Year Blog

Hey guys!

I literally can’t believe that the end of first year is in sight! Time is just flying by and I’m greatly stressed because my six exams are just around the corner. It certainly didn’t help that last week’s revision had to be put on hold, as Wednesday was the deadline for our Lab Reports that accompanied this semester’s set of labs. Tuesday night was certainly a late one filled with frantic texting in the group chats!!  My report was on an experiment that involved extracting DNA from our cheek cells, finding out our genotype for the taste receptor TAS2R38, and researching how this affects the flavors we can detect. This means labs are DONE until the exam!! It felt so good to finish the practical side of them. After many celebratory jumps down the corridor, my tutorial group and a few others went to Big Hands (a pub opposite the Stopford Building – the main building for life sciences lectures and practicals) for some drinks in the sun. I say the word ‘sun’ lightly; we were slightly freezing to death on the roof terrace but hey, at least we tried!!

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We’ve finished labs!

Post-lab report celebrations at Big Hands

 

The weather has actually been AMAZING these last few days. It reached 26 degrees, which for Manchester is incredible! The slightest bit of sun sees the student world descend to every inch of grass they can find on campus. The little ice cream vans that pop up by Stopford really make the walks home in the heat more bearable, as does the fact that Lidl is so close to Whitworth Park for impromptu picnics in the sun! The other day, me and a few life scientists did exactly that for a few hours. We were actually working on an entry for this cool competition the Faculty of Life Sciences was running, where you had to make a film about a famous scientist who went to The University of Manchester. We chose to make an animated film about Kathleen Mary Drew-Baker; a scientist who studied the life cycle of the seaweed Porphyra laciniata.  Her research went on to save Japanese coastal communities from starving, after typhoons destroyed their seaweed plantations, so she really was an inspirational figure!

Everyone stops uni work for a rare sight of the sun

Drawings for our animated film!

My procrastination level also hit the roof the other day when me and Jaina went… skiing?! Admittedly this WAS a bad idea to do two days before my Lab Report was due (but hey, I got it in on time!!) and it was such a fun two hours at an indoor ski centre called Chill Factore, next to the Trafford Centre. I’d never skied before and I didn’t fall over once, so I was very proud of that!! In fact, over these past few weeks I feel like I’ve done many activities to improve my balancing ability: My friend Rachel and I went to the Northern Quarter for cocktails, which involved many hours balancing in our heels! – And another week the rock-climbers and I decided to go to a roller disco after a climbing session. After several face-plants and spectacular falls, it made for such a fun evening, and nicely added to the bruises we’d already sustained from climbing. It was actually free; one of the many activities the university had organized as part of an exam period De-stress Day.

Skiing!

Rock-climbers at the Roller Disco!

Speaking of cool things that I have been able to attend as a result of the university, I went to a seriously mind-blowing lecture organized by the Faculty of Life Sciences Society about CRISPR – a new gene editing technique, led by Professor Matthew Cobb, one of my lecturers from first semester. It’s pretty complex, but stay tuned, because this is going to revolutionize science!! For more information, you can listen to a BBC Radio 4 show he did about it here.

Anyway, aside from several fajita nights, Northern Quarter catch–ups, climbing sessions, and a night out with Rach to Revolution in Deansgate Locks, there have also been meetings with our new Programme Directors. Because… I officially became a Biologist!! It’s made me greatly excited about second year too because I really want to do a field course to somewhere amazing like Costa Rica. You might remember me saying from my last blog post that I had to pick a specialization, given that Life Sciences is only a one year course. It’s sad that we’re all splitting up, but given that I’m living with two of them next year, it’s not too bad! We’re also planning to go on a tutorial Black Milk outing after our final academic tutor session, which will be cute!

I also had my final three lectures today. It was sad, but the day was made special by 25 degree weather, the fact that I officially got my first job at Starbucks (FREE DRINKS YAY), and the spontaneous appearance of a Ferris Wheel outside Uni Place!! Only in Manchester, eh?

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Night out with Rachel

My first job!

Already I’m looking forward to the after exam celebrations. We’re going to the Life Sciences Ball, which is actually on the night of my last exam; so it will be a much needed celebration!! It’s Oscars themed and will be complete with a three-course meal and photo booth, so should be amazing!!  The next night is the last Pangaea festival of the academic year. It’s carnival themed, and my flat-mates and I are already thinking about costumes – flower-crowns, tie-dye clothing, and lots of glitter are on the cards!

Well, this is my last blog post I’m writing for this year. I’ve enjoyed blogging so much! I love writing and it’s so nice to look back and remember what I did over the year. It’s been a fun, hectic, stressful and simply the most amazing year!! You don’t realise how much you will learn at university until you get here: whether it’s the confidence to try new things and meet new people, surviving away from home, to realizing how the science you learn in your textbooks actually translates into real life… Not to mention how to make the choice between more sleep, and the 9am lectures you paid £9,000 for!! 😉 It’s been a whirlwind of an adventure though, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

And to all those picking Manchester as their first choice (the right choice that is!), see you next year!!

Rachel xxx

 

 

 

 

 

Lucy’s Third Year Blog

Well hello again,

You find me at one of the busiest and most hectic times of any undergraduate degree: the final stretch of third year. Most third years are currently finishing off their final year project before exams start. As an MSci student though, as ever, things are quite a bit different. The usual 40 credits you get for your literature review and final year project are replaced by three different modules on the MSci course, all of which equip you for your final year as a research student, and beyond.

The first was a 10 credit bioinformatics module which we completed in first semester, which turned out to be much less daunting than I’d expected – I actually did really well in it. The second is a 10 credit project proposal module which is stretched out across the whole year. For this, you have to complete quite a bit of work during the first week back after summer, then compose two different research project proposals (one per semester), one of which will become your final year MSci project. This unit has probably been mt favourite MSci unit, as you have total freedom to work with any of the researchers in the faculty and pursue a project in pretty much anything you can imagine. However, this freedom also comes with a lot of responsibility; you must organise the projects and find two supervisors to work with yourself, and carry out most of the work independently (with a little help from your supervisors, of course).

Finally, we also have a 20 credit experimental skills module. This is a really intense unit, condensed into just 4 weeks. You have to design an individual project, which is part of a wider group research project. My group are carrying out a baseline ecological survey of the green spaces on the university campus, and comparing the biodiversity of that to a local, poorly-maintained park in a residential area behind the university. This project is part of the university’s commitment to social responsibility and working with local communities. The data we produce will be submitted to Manchester City Council and used to inform the planning of the regeneration of the local park, and of the redevelopment and pedestrianisation of Brunswick Street on the university campus, to expand our green spaces. It’s quite exciting knowing that the data we collect will be put to good use. However, there’s a lot of work to be done in a relatively short space of time. This week has been spent doing site visits, and planning the project. We had to write and submit a 2 page experimental design, then we will begin collecting data.

Survey site on campus

I have about 9 days to collect around 50 soil samples from the two field sites, and analyse them in the lab. I’ll be looking at the different properties of the soil, such as: pH, moisture content, the presence of calcium carbonate. Then, I’ll be sieving and centrifuging the soil to separate the microscopic nematodes from within it, to measure the nematode abundance. I chose to look at nematodes because – if you’ve read my other blogs – you’ll know I have a thing for parasites, especially wormy ones! Even though these are free-living nematodes, I couldn’t help but make the tenuous link to parasitism. Anyway, once that’s all done I have to statistically analyse my data and write a 5 page lab report. Then, our group will get together to compile all of our data and collectively produce a professional (looking) A1 poster representing our results. This will then be at the centre of a 15 minute group presentation, in which we will all have to answer questions on the project. Sound like a lot? Yep. Oh, and that’s not even considering exams, which start about a week after all this finishes. Ahhh the life of a third year. It’s a good job I love what I do!

So I guess you’d think that – with all that work – I’ve become a solitary creature, found only in the darkest depths of the library. For the most part, you’d be right. However, I like to make sure I reward myself with a bit of fun. This week brought another Tuesday night at Bongo’s bingo at Albert hall (see my last blog if you’re wondering why on earth a 21 year old student would go to bingo), a night at the Albert’s Schloss bar with a live band, and a summertime themed house party for a friends birthday. I also took my sister to the Manchester Opera House to watch Chicago. It was such a good show and I even got the tickets on a cheap student deal. So I’ve had plenty of chance to blow off some steam.

I’ve also been working hard at fundraising for charity for the past few weeks. My housemate and I both have both volunteered abroad with two sister international development charities; which aim to improve access to clean drinking water, promote gender equality and increase environmental sustainability. We both had such incredible experiences, so we decided to fundraise to help fund future projects. I don’t know how I ended up agreeing to this, but we are doing a sponsored sky dive this week; I am beyond petrified. Amazingly, we’ve already raised nearly £700, so at least my untimely death will be for a worthwhile cause. Anyway, I can’t think about jumping out of a plane right now, so I’m changing the subject to something less traumatic.

Fundraiser by day, hula girl by night.

In fact, I’m going to talk about something quite the opposite of traumatic…PUPPIES! Well, singular – just the one puppy. My best friend from back home graduated from university last summer and is now living and working in Manchester, not too far away from me. She rang me last month and told me she was getting a puppy! I’m probably the most excitable dog lover you’ll ever meet. I’m the weirdo who will go round to someone’s house and sit on the floor spooning their dog, rather than actually spend any time with them. So naturally, I was straight around to her house to meet the little pup! Last week we took her for her very first walk around the reservoir in Manchester and she absolutely loved it! Walks and puppy cuddles are the best form of stress relief from uni work I could ask for; oh, and it’s nice to see my best friend too!

“Arghh I have so many deadlin…aww look at the puppy! Let’s go for a walk.”

The next six or seven weeks will be a whirlwind of excitement and stress which will see me through to the end of third year (well that’s a terrifying thought). It will bring with it: 4 coursework deadlines, 5 exams, 2 music gigs, 1 BBQ (hopefully – it is Manchester), 1 end of year ball and 1 trip to Barcelona! If you’ve read my other blogs, you’ll remember that I booked holiday to Barcelona during Easter with some of my course friends to visit our friend who’s out there working in a zoology lab for his modern language year. Well things didn’t really go to plan; we went to the airport, got through security and were called to board the plane, but alas, our flight was suddenly cancelled due to the French air traffic control strikes. The next available flight was the day after we were supposed to return home. So we lost our entire holiday. They even made us show our boarding cards to go downstairs to arrivals, and then made us go through immigration because we’d “technically left the country”. Suffice to say, it was a pretty depressing train ride back to Fallowfield. We were absolutely gutted; a few days in the Spanish sun was just what we needed. However, we’ve just been refunded for the flights and now we’ve rebooked to go straight after final exams instead! I’m sure we’ll need the break even more by then, and it will be twice as hot. Silver linings and all that eh? Anyway, that’s enough blabbering from me; as usual, I should be doing my work.

Ciao for now,

Lucy

Astynnia’s Second Year (International) Blog

Hello everyone!

In my last post, I talked about how busy my academic schedule was with my Research Skills Module (RSM) and Dissertation. Since I am done with them now, I can assure you guys that RSM online assessments are actually not as daunting as many would perceive. Basically, us Biomedical Sciences students were introduced to 4 different clinical sciences specialism in 4 weeks – Clinical Microbiology, Clinical Biochemistry, Clinical Pathology and Clinical Haematology. By the end of the week, we were required to complete an online assessment either in the form of short answer questions, a summary of a scientific article or methods and results writing. As long as you have a good understanding of the experiments and follow the assessment guidelines, you’re likely to do well! The assessments are worth 50% of the module, so it is important to ask the practical supervisor if you are having any problems understanding the topic. There’s no need to feel shy about this though because they are always more than willing to help you!

As for my dissertation, titled “Gut Microbiome and the Health of Colon” my supervisor gave me two articles as starter references. It took me a little while to get my head around these as nothing is easy when you are doing it for the first time. However, the more you read, the easier it is to understand what you need to include in the 9-page literature review. An easy trick is to always refer to the reference list in the starter references provided as they will provide you with other related scientific articles. And voila! Your reading list is sorted :). It is important for you to properly understand the content within your dissertation because you have to present your dissertation topic to your academic tutor and tutorial group members!

Before parting away for Easter holiday, my best buddy and I had a delicious Korean meal at Seoul Kimchi on Upper Brook Street. It seems like we found another one of Manchester hidden gems! If you are craving or would like to try authentic Korean food, this place is the right place to go to!

Kimchi stew with rice and beef bibimbap. Side dishes anchovies, kimchi (fermented cabbage) and pickles.

However our 3-weeks of Easter break is now at an end. I am currently still doing the modifications works for my RSM lab report. In the coming two weeks, there will be spot tests for Immunology and Parasitology and they are worth 10% each for the modules. I’m a little nervous for these as have found it hard to fit in revision this Easter holidays. That’s because I spent 12 days of the holiday in Norway and Iceland! I’m really making the most of being able to travel around and see as much of Europe as I can while I am over here for my studies away from Malaysia.

The best way to experience Norway is from above. Naturally, that involves a lot of hiking and battling with steep cliffs. However, you will get postcard views of stunning fjords (pulpit rocks) and that is the time when nature makes you feel like a tiny ant in a gigantic world. Iceland was equally as enjoyable with magical cinematic landscapes to leave you in awe. I was able to witness aurora borealis (also known as the northern lights) dancing above my head in Reyjkavik, which was absolutely wonderful. I also visited Seljalandsfoss waterfall.

The view from 605m off the Preikestolen pulpit rock in Rogaland, Norway.

Seljalandsfoss waterfall

 

I would say that it has been a productive semester for me with the right balance between work and play. As much as I wanted the holiday to last, I am looking forward to finishing my 2^nd year as well, which means I am only 2 months away to be back home. 🙂

First day back at university after 3-weeks of Easter holidays celebrated with a McDonalds catch up lunch break!

 

Astynnia x

Rachel’s First Year Blog

Hello there!

Oh my goodness, how time flies!! It’s already the Easter holidays, and knowing that in just over two months I will have virtually finished first year is actually a terrifying fact.  I don’t want to grow up yet! Although thoughts of second year are really exciting (I’VE GOT A HOUSE!!), but there is still much to do this semester including finishing off my set of labs and sitting the next lot of exams. I intended to get a lot of revision done this Easter, given how busy my academic and social life was last term… but I ended up going on a very spontaneous trip to Amsterdam with my friend Jaina, who I’d met through the Mountaineering society!! That and catching up with friends from home has made for some very efficient procrastination…

Casually in Amsterdam

One of the highlights of last term was another trip with the rock climbers; this time to Wales for a spot of climbing and an Annual Dinner. We spent the weekend in a hostel, and had rather late nights and very chilled mornings where we got into groups and organised activities for ourselves. On the Saturday we hiked up a mountain; Sunday consisted of climbing slate in a quarry, and the middle evening was spent getting dressed up, before going to a fancy hotel for a three-course meal. The food was incredible, and although it was hard to eat so much in tight dresses and have a dance afterwards, we all managed! It was such a fun weekend and a fab opportunity to make new friends; even if my feet got shredded from the dancing (discarding my heels wasn’t a good option!) and I came back with a huge cold, despite the weather not reaching the hair-freezing level like my last trip away. My amazing flatmate soon helped me cure it when I got back though, as we went to a cute café in the Northern Quarter for some rainbow cake… yes, it exists!!

Rock climbing girls = dresses and… boots!

Wales is super pretty

The whole MUMC for the Annual Dinner

The next week, the group of girls I’d met in Wales arranged to meet at the SU to go rock climbing… but instead, we ended up going to a temple in town to an event run by the Indian Society, to celebrate the Holi festival! It was a very spontaneous idea but was huge fun; we ran around outside in the rain and threw multi-coloured powdered paint all over each other. I got some very strange looks walking back into my accommodation, and it’s safe to say the inside of my coat has never been the same since. We also decided to go a crazy event one night called ‘Bongo’s Bingo’ at the Albert Hall. It was bingo but with a twist – the twist being glow sticks, rave rounds, dance-offs, and prizes ranging from £500 to a Frozen paddling pool! (No-one understands how much I genuinely wanted the pool). We didn’t win anything but it was a good laugh, and just highlighted what weird and wonderful things there are to do in Manchester!

Holi festival!

Jump shots are better with powder paint

On a more academic note, my lab sessions were actually pretty cool last term. One was a Neuroanatomy Lab, where we got to look at models of the brain and the spinal cord, and discover how they function. There was also a lab were we were allowed to put drugs in our eyes to see if our pupils constricted or dilated; to some very weird effects! I’ve heard that Manchester is one of the few universities – if the only – that allows such human experimentation, which is just awesome.

Neuroanatomy lab

Another really useful thing that The University of Manchester does for us is provide a brilliant careers service. They frequently inform us of opportunities for work experience, careers advice, and generally loads of stuff that you can do to improve your CV. So, one Sunday my friend Sophia and I did some work experience at a local National Trust site called Styal Estate; learning how to survey and classify a habitat to produce a Phase 1 habitat map. It was really interesting, especially as the rangers would actually use the maps to help with the conservation of the estate!

Aside from that, there’s been several birthdays (with some pretty cocktails!), Black Milk Cereal dates (where else?!), cute trips to the amazing Manchester Museum (on Campus!), climbing sessions, essays and a night out to Sankeys to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. It’s safe to say I was really looking forward to Easter to have a rest! Now all that remains is to get through next term…

Manchester Museum

Black Milk Cereal amazing milkshakes

Until next time!!

Rachel

South Africa Field Course

Hey guys!

My name is Jennifer, and I am a first year student here at The University of Manchester – studying ‘Life Sciences with Mandarin’. The great thing about choosing ‘Life Sciences’ in my first year is the amount of flexibility – it is so nice to have a course that understands that you are indecisive when deciding a specialism, and so lets you pick any of the optional modules that you want. This is a great way to help us decide what we actually want to switch to in our second year – an inevitable but sad time: all of us Life Scientists are so close and don’t want to leave each other! But is it exciting when another one of us finally decides on their new degree programme. As for me, I will be changing to ‘Zoology with Mandarin’! I have chosen this course due to the interesting modules in the upcoming years – especially ‘Conservation Biology’ and ‘Animal behaviour’ – the opportunity for exciting research in both the lab and the field. However, what really cemented the decision of Zoology in my mind was the field course I have just returned from – studying Animal Behaviour in Thabazimbi, South Africa!

The South Africa team 2016!

It was genuinely the best two weeks of my life. From waking up to a gorgeous sunrise every morning, to the daily treks in the bush with a tower of giraffes for company (yes, I googled the collective noun!) to gazing up at the stars in the evening, I had never been happier! Having exceedingly limited wifi and no city lights made me appreciate the natural world even more than I already did – I had never seen so many stars before in my life! We were staying on a private game farm called Thani-Zimbi, so as well as seeing loads of ostrich, baboons and zebras, we also learnt how to identify the many species of antelope and birds found here too. Other highlights included visiting Marakele Predator Centre (BABY TIGER CUBS!), admiring the Botswana border from the tops of the local mountains, and of course, Pilanesberg National Park. I was prepared to be blown away, but little prepared me for seeing a pride of lions suddenly appearing out of the trees – the male coming down to the watering hole to drink, or having the road blocked by two bull elephants walking right past us. It was definitely something special! Being 1m away from a herd of elephants with their tiny gorgeous babies, spotting rhinos in the distance, and seeing so many impala, wildebeest, zebra, giraffes – the list could go on! It definitely inspired me to pursue a career in conservation.

Marakele predator centre

Overlooking Botswana

I did not zoom in for this photo!

Pilanesbury National Park

However, this field course was not just about the elephant selfies. There was a lot of work to do both before and when we were here. In the weeks prior to the field course, we had 6 lectures on the concepts of experimental design, and the workings of various statistical programmes, such as Prism, SPSS and R. Understanding how to collect the right sort of data, and knowing how to write the correct code for R so the data can be analysed properly, are valuable skills which are essential for the field. This is one of the reasons why I loved this field course, as although the animals were an added bonus, the whole point was to develop the skills you need to be a scientist – and it may surprise many of you that a solid grasp of maths, statistics and programmes are highly desirable for future years, and even masters programmes. To think that at The University of Manchester we are learning these skills as first year students is really exciting!

Once in Africa we were also kept busy. Manchester field courses are unique in that they let you plan and carry out your very own research project from start to finish. It was a huge learning curve, but it was a great way to build your teamwork and organisation skills! I was intrigued by the jackal and primate tracks on an initial drive through the game park, and so I got a group together, and we were off!

The Trackers project group!

Our project looked into the changes of diversity of animal tracks with regards to location and time of day. This involved getting ourselves up and to walk through the bush every day (at 6am and 6pm), to 3 sites around the reserve that we had prepared via raking over the ground the previous time we visited – sites in the dense vegetation, open grasslands, and by the watering hole. We would record the number of species by identifying the new tracks present; rake the ground, and start again the next day! It was great fun, as we collected a lot of data and saw many animals on our wanderings. It was also exciting when, by the end of the week, we could gaze at the ground and could tell the difference between warthog and impala, waterbuck and blesbok tracks!

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Marking out the field sites

Early morning wanderings

Data Collection

Zebra tracks!

The independence we had when carrying out the project (it was up to us to get up at 5am!), and the confidence I gained from presenting our results to the entire group, were also excellent skills to develop! We also had lectures and a field exam when we were there, but they were actually really fun, especially when your distractions were lurking giraffes and warthogs around the watering hole!

5am sunrise

Lecture distractions!

I have now been back in England a few days, and already missing the sun, people and animals! It was a fantastic experience, and I would urge you all to do it if you get the chance!

 

Jennifer

Declan’s Placement Year Blog

Hi guys, my name is Declan and I am a Pharmacology student at The University of Manchester. I’m writing this post to give everybody back home, prospective placement students in particular, a bit of a description of my placement with The MRC Unit in The Gambia. Here, I’m undertaking an immunology-based project examining the potential for Gambians to exhibit protective immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB). I’ve been working here for around eight months now, and haven’t seen rain in about six! Anyways, I’ll try to give you all a rundown of what’s involved in a placement year with The MRC, what it’s like working in an international lab / in the field of immunology and what life is like in The Gambia.

We all received our offer letters sometime during revision for 2^nd semester exams, so to say it all came as a bit overwhelming would be an understatement. After meeting my future housemates, Rowan and Claire, the university helped us with organizing all of our vaccinations and other medical preparations for travelling abroad to The Gambia in July 2015. When we left it was difficult for anybody to predict exactly how we would find the experience. We had very little idea what The MRC, or the country, would be like, but students from previous years spoke very highly of it and were happy to lessen our apprehensions. On arrival, everything was laid out for us, and we soon settled into a lovely house on-site for the three of us. Within a few weeks, training sessions were completed and we were ready to begin work for our projects!

Myself, Claire and Rowan

The prospect of travelling to work on a disease as well-characterised as TB at a renowned research station was overwhelming – How could I catch up with centuries of research and somehow contribute to it?! However, I’ve found that once you get working on a project where you’re focusing all your attention on one subject (as I’m certainly doing here), it really helps you to digest the information and make real progress. My work is almost entirely concerned with my own project. It’s very rare that I’m required to devote time to any other work than my own, and I’m given a great degree of autonomy in the way I choose to work, which I adore – I couldn’t really ask for more. Work hours are about 8 hours per day, with a half day on Fridays, and a fair few public holidays. Anyways, I can try to describe what I do in my time in the lab here for anyone who’s interested:

Samples are taken from Gambians living with individuals with active pulmonary TB. This is conducted by the TB Immunology department’s sample collection team, who we’re always welcome to join on trips to various regions of The Gambia. These samples are used for a bunch of different projects in our department, but mine are concerned with comparing those who contract, with those who don’t contract, latent TB disease. The idea with this is to see what differences there are in the individuals’ innate immune systems that protect them from initial TB infection, before an adaptive immune response is even primed. The project is divided into three main lab phases. Firstly, I carry out assays for interferon γ, a routine protocol in our lab. This diagnoses whether a patient has latent TB infection. After this, I carried out a similar type of assay (multiplex cytokine assays, for anybody interested) looking at levels of a load of other cytokines, all implicated in TB in some way. Finally, we run flow cytometry experiments using isolated white blood cellsrozen in liquid nitrogen – super cool). This means we get to compare cytokine levels, then cell populations, then the cytokine production from those cells. It all sounds a bit complicated… It kind of is. Flow cytometry is a super complicated technique and hugely valuable if you want to work in immunology, or just want to show in your CV that you’re competent at difficult lab techniques.

The amount of data that we’ve generated has already been immense – it’s no wonder so many students end up publishing quality research papers at the end of their time here. An important thing I’d say about working in the field of immunology is that it all comes down to the analysis. You can spend weeks/months running samples without even seeing a hint of a trend, then it all comes together when you compare all of your data. I have amassed so much data that I could decide to analyse it in one of a thousand different ways. It sounds incredibly geeky, and maybe it is, but there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing months of data collection go into stats analysis and seeing something significant come out of the other side.

There’s so much more to draw from the experience of living and working here that I think I’ll struggle to write it all down. I think that working internationally really helps you to gain a sense of independence which is hugely beneficial to your confidence, vastly impacting your ability to work well as an individual. Also, it’s worth considering the importance of being able to work in a team of people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. At The MRC, everybody speaks English to varying degrees, but you’ll regularly hear people speaking French, Dutch, German, Wolof, Mandinka, Fula, Krio, Ibo, and a range of other languages depending on who’s in town at the time! It’s a really exciting educational experience for anybody who likes to learn about new languages and cultures. I’ve definitely been able to develop my communication skills during my time here, as I have taken the opportunity to learn some Wolof, a very useful local language in this part of The Gambia, and in a lot of West Africa in general. I couldn’t recommend this enough as it opens up so many more opportunities to explore. With MRC sites all over the country and plenty of other friends travelling around on weekends and holidays, there’s no shortage of hidden gems to visit where it’s possible to get a true “Gambian Experience” (cringe) in less touristy parts of the country.

Kuntakinteh

Sandy beaches stretching on for miles are about a 5 minute walk away from The MRC. We’re spoilt for wildlife, really – it’s possible to pose for photos with crocodiles in the sacred pools at Bakau, go bird-watching on the river from Tendaba or Lamin and watch the hippos from Basse town. You can take a 20-minute bike ride to the see the Senegambia monkey park, though I haven’t done this, since you can oftentimes wait in The MRC for the local monkey families to come and steal the oranges growing in the garden (cute!). If you’re feeling adventurous, a short journey north into Senegal takes you to safari parks featuring lions, giraffes, rhinos and a host of other wildlife. On that note, Senegal offers numerous great short trips outside of work. We visited Dindefelo Falls (awesome), plan to attend the St. Louis jazz festival, and know plenty of other people who have travelled into other areas of Senegal, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau.

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Garden

Monkeys

Snake!

Another fantastic thing about working in The Gambia is the tiny size of the country. This gives you so many opportunities to meet people who you would never get to meet working in other countries. During our time here, we’ve hung out with numerous US Marine and Peace Corps, spent a lot of time with students from all over Europe, working not just in The MRC, but at clinics, hospitals and other organisations all around the country. If you’re lucky, you may get the opportunity to meet the ambassadors for the US and the UK – they’re actually pretty sound to have a cup of tea with. Basically, I’d say to any prospective applicants for projects based here, don’t be worried about being away from your friends in Manchester. There’s a pretty cool bunch of people here, people who I’m sure I’m going to miss just as much when I return to England as I’ve been missing all my university friends for the last eight months.

To summarise, working in The Gambia is pretty sweet. If I could pick anywhere to start getting an idea of what full-time research work is like, I’d certainly choose it to be somewhere sunny, with ample opportunities to relax away from work. This place certainly seems to provide that. In short, I almost don’t want to come back!

Thanks for reading, and if anybody wants to contact me to ask about placement years, The MRC, immunological research or The Gambia, feel free to drop me a message at declan.manning@student.manchester.ac.uk. I’ll always try to respond as quickly as possible!

Declan.

MRes Sciences

Ruth Ingram, MRes Sciences

During my Undergraduate degree at the University of Manchester I had many great experiences with the city, the lecturers and the students. After doing an Industrial Placement year working for a pharmaceutical company, I knew that I wanted a career in scientific research. I was keen to build on my research experience with a Master’s degree, and the MRes offered great opportunities for neuroscience research. This MRes was highly recommended to me by my tutor, and I was able to secure MRC funding for tuition fees and a living stipend.
The highlight of the MRes degree so far has been the opportunity to conduct independent research. A project plan was given to me at the start of my rotation, but I have built on this with my own ideas, and the resulting experiments have been of my own design. It’s great to get experience of independent research within the relative safety of a 1 year MRes degree, before embarking on a PhD.
It is my ambition to have a career as an academic, conducting research into neuropsychology and hopefully lecturing too. The MRes degree is an important step towards securing a PhD, which will be required for me to succeed in this ambition. Master’s degrees, especially MRes degrees, are less about learning theories and more about learning techniques. Choose a Master’s degree that gives you the opportunity to try as many different research techniques as possible – you never know which ones may be useful in your future career!

Contact me at: ruth.ingram@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk