My final year of my undergraduate degree in Marine Biology has definitely been the most challenging. The year began with me collecting data for my dissertation which was on how mobile fish are utilising two seagrass beds in Cornwall. This involved me and my research group going to two different seagrass sites and deploying underwater video systems into the seagrass beds, and we had to collect 50 hours from both sites. I found this to be very fun and reinforced the idea that I really wanted to do field work when I graduate, and I am now looking at job opportunities that incorporate this. After the 100 hours were collected, we had to sit and watch the videos we collected which was quite time consuming but extremely beneficial as it really helped me with identifying different fish species that I am now able to spot when I got out snorkelling or diving in my free time. By using the underwater video systems, it really helped to get more practical experience that we unfortunately were unable to attain last year due to the pandemic.

My modules in first term were Ocean Ecology & Conservation and Marine Vertebrate Conservation, and my second term module was Symbiosis in Marine Systems. I really enjoyed all of these modules as they all varied quite nicely, especially Symbiosis in Marine Systems as that focused on more of the mechanisms that occur within the ocean. Two of the assessments for Marine Vertebrate Conservation were discussion groups, where we had to also present a slide we made of the topic that was being discussed. This really allowed me to improve my confidence in speaking in a group, as well as with people I did not usually talk to. Similarly, 20% of the overall mark for the dissertation involved giving an 8-minute presentation on my research in front of 10 other students, two staff that were marking the presentations, and a PhD student who was chairing the session. This was something I was really nervous about but with the practising I did for it, once I began my presentation I found it much easier. I was really pleased to have got a 1st for it. This also really boosted my public speaking confidence as I had never done anything like this before and I know if I had to do it again I would feel less nervous about it.

The highlight of this year was going on my fieldtrip. I went to the Azores for 10 days where we did a large range of activities such as, whale-watching, snorkelling, work on the plastic pollution there. We also did more work with the underwater video systems that were used during my dissertation which I found helpful to reinforce my knowledge on how to use them and their importance to monitor marine activity. I also had a chance to meet many other students that I had not yet had a chance to meet due to being completely online last year, so it was really nice to get to know more people from my degree.

Next year I will be returning to study in Falmouth in order to undertake a masters in Marine Environmental Management. I am really looking forward to this as my project on the seagrass in Cornwall made me realise that marine environments is something I am really interested in and what I want to be focusing on as I continue my career in marine biology.

The funding I received from my scholarship helped me fund my fieldtrip this year, which was extremely helpful, so I would like again to say a massive thank you to you Joanna for helping support my undergraduate degree these last 3 years.

I'm looking forward to talking to you further about how my last three years have been and to be able to find out more about yourself.

With best wishes

Lucy