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

 

 

 

 

 

Dan’s Final Year Blog

Well hello there Lords, Ladies and esteemed guests, and welcome back to another year at The University of Manchester, for the big one: Dan’s final year blog. I sincerely hope you guys all enjoyed reading my haphazard bit and pieces last year and that you all had a good summer.

So here goes for final year, hope you all enjoy and erm.. wish me luck.

Go to uni they said… It’ll be fun they said… You’ll do well they said… Up to now that’s pretty much how it’s been, the good old council of ‘they’ had seemed to be telling the truth. This year though, the rules change. Apparently, you can’t spend third year having lie-ins, singing karaoke and getting Chinese take away at three in the morning.

However, true to form, I have been doing my best to ignore all of the above. After the breakup of last year’s penthouse crew due to people going off on placement, I have had to, once again, change house and housemates. Luckily, my choice of mates is impeccable, and so we have been doing our best to keep some of the fun alive as third year gets underway.  Antwerp Mansion, Athletics Union and The Ram don’t seem to have suffered too badly for our summer absences. But the most useful watering hole in Fallowfield this year has been the Friendship Inn, by a country mile. Their comprehensive coverage of the rugby world cup made for great viewing, even if England’s poor performance did gift my Welsh and Irish friends some ill-deserved bragging rights. Also, and I’m not sure if I should be shouting about this, but live-band karaoke at The Ram has started to become a thing these days… Make of that what you will, but needless to say, there has never been a rendition of “Stacey’s Mom” quite like mine. The Warehouse Project is also still going strong, with Skepta and Run The Jewels playing excellent sets, and Hudson Mohawke to come in December.

But as ever, a great range of less intensive activities persist in Manchester. NeuroSoc have really upped their game this year with some more varied socials, including but not limited to bowling, curry and an upcoming battle of the sciences (pub) quiz. Course societies are still a great way to catch up with those people you tend not to see in lectures.

Neurosoc social! (Me on the left)

I also had a lot of fun trying out for The University of Manchester Tyrants American football team, who are a great laugh (and who are currently three wins for three this season, just saying), but who’s training unfortunately clashes with the open days for which I am a student ambassador, which is a shame. Oh and speaking of student ambassadoring, guess who got hired as a senior ambassador this year… Haha yes, they actually picked me! No I don’t know what they were thinking either, but it has honestly been such a laugh so far. The other seniors are an absolute riot, we really are a dream team this year, and for the first year ever, we as seniors had to run the training day for all new ambassadors. Everyone else has been performing very well since then, so hopefully our breakdown presentation and all smiles strategy is paying off. Either way, there have been no disasters yet, so I can only assume that things went well… but fingers crossed in any case that we have been able to persuade plenty of people to put Manchester down as their first choice! Within faculty jobs like the ambassador one really are something I can recommend: you get to work as part of a great team, looks great on a CV, develop all sorts of transferable skills, and they always yield a great new crop of mates.

But enough about how awesome of a FoLS ambassador I am, it’s time to talk about work I’m afraid, and yes there is a lot of it. My final year counts for, I think, two thirds of my whole degree, and so is kind of a big deal. And the biggest deal within that big deal is our final year projects. Last year you had to listen to me moan about my dissertation, this year I’m going to be moaning about my project. A lot. Luckily, my project supervisor is a top researcher who heads up a number of science outreach programmes, and has been very helpful so far. As it turns out, I’m going to be doing an educational project that will revolve around using the common fruit fly Drosophila as a model organism for teaching and expanding the public appreciation for neurosciencey concepts. First though, I have to write a review paper about something vaguely neuroscience based, that involves the fruit fly. Those of you who wish to know more about my “Compare and contrast the visual organs of mammals and insects” lit review should get in contact, so I don’t bore everyone else to death. Other projects are available by the way! In your final year you can work in the lab, or in science and education/ science communications/ bio-modelling/ or you can develop an ‘e-learning resource’. The initial choice is always yours; the choice of subject and the type of project and then the uni do their best to accommodate everyone. Lab projects are probably the most common, but I elected not to do one, largely because I can’t sit still for that long and fancied something a bit more ‘up and about’.

So, so far, final year has not quite been the nightmare it was billed to be – relations with Chicken King are at an all-time high, the new house is decent, and with a bit of proper work this year, I should finish up with a decent grade!

Oh also, just a quick note about summer – Although not strictly ‘uni time’, I should let you all know that I went on a three week, faculty organised exchange programme to China over the summer. This was a very good decision, as it was the best thing I’ve done uni related. So 7 of us, 4 from this uni, went on a cultural and educational exchange with a university in Nanjing. It was so good, it was marvellous out there. We had 3 weeks of 40°C heat, learning about Chinese culture, medicine and healthcare. Very interesting educational aspects, massive heat, stunning food, jaw-dropping sights, a slightly fortuitous business class upgrade on the way home and an all-round kick-ass adventure. We had lectures while we were out there during the day, but we didn’t have a project or homework to be doing, so 9am – 5pm we were at uni but then we could go away and do our own thing – so we did lots of exploring! The luckiest part is that I nearly didn’t apply! Definitely something to think about if you feel like you might be Manchester bound for uni…

Nanjing!

Nanjing art museum

Shanghai

Shanghai

Beijing

Anyway, I’ll shut up now.

Much love to all,

Dan Little.