I don’t think I was prepared emotionally for yesterday’s graduation ceremonies.
Undergraduate tutees and dissertation supervisees: Shania, Rebecca, Alex, Rhiannon, and others like Rob (mature student whom I encouraged to do a degree while sitting on a hill voluntary botanising 5 years ago) and Tom (who was at school with my eldest son, and – having just had a year in work – told his classmates how important the Excel skills I was teaching are).

Then there was my tutee Rohan; Me: “I hardly ever saw, you Rohan, how are you?” – he did really well though and Rohan: “I knew where you were if I needed you!” Which to be honest, why would he want to spend time with a middle aged woman if everything is fine?

And Ian (MBiol) who I met on the bird ID field trip when he was in stage 1 – he got 100% and I got 74% (I was ostensibly a demonstrator, but was there to learn!) and now he posts the best wildlife pics ond Twitter (follow him! – see below). There is a chair and computer in KGVI Lawn cluster where we did stats that will remember Ian for some time, I think!

And beautiful Rafef (MSc Conservation and Ecosystem Management) who wrote her first essay in English with us (rather than Arabic), and has been such an enthusiastic, dedicated, hard working and kind of the CEM students, graduating a bit later than the others for personal reasons, but that meant I had her and her husband to myself for our celebratory meal afterwards.

What an amazing day and I’m so pleased we won’t lose touch.

Ellie graduated from our #MScconservationandecosystemmanagement degree back in my first year as DPD – in 2019. I’m sure there will be some early blogs with her in. And now she is with Natural History Society of Northumberland at the Natural History Museum (Hancock) on campus. I’m not sure who is most happy about this, Ellie, NHSN or me! She has such a gift for enthusing and engaging people and is so creative – I know she will be brilliant.

Would love to have a day out with HoYin on Lindisfarne looking for orchids – perhaps if I work ridiculously hard today and tomorrow, I will allow myself out?

Our students are encouraged to show their work off on social media – not just because it makes my blogging a lot easier! Ho-Yin is tagging all the relevant organistaions, BSBI, Butterfly Conversation and is working with the Natural History Society of Northumberland too and getting his work out there and his face know.

Our habitat assessment and monitoring module where we do the new Phase 1 survey, Phase 2 NVC, we think about how to analyse ecological data in RStudio and this is our residential in the beautiful south lakes where we hit the woods, the mire and the sadly, rapidly disappearing saltmarsh

Alice, from Northumberland Wildlife Trust: “Helen, I’ve had a couple of applications from your students whom I couldn’t interview because they didn’t seem to know how to fill in an application form. Please can I come and talk to them?”
Me: “yes please! Covid year – we did have a session on app forms but it is not the same as when you guys come and meet students”
Theo (former student, Plymouth Council): “Helen the careers event you put on when I was a student was brilliant; it was so helpful for me. Please can I come and talk to your current students?”
Me: “definitely”
Alice: “I’ve got a couple of friends would like to come – ecological consultancy, and greening officer”
Me: “yes – and Georgie, former student, from Defra is also coming”
So:
– Alice passed on valuable tips and tricks regarding how to fill in an application form
– Georgie talked about competency questions
– we had Speed Interviews – 2mins to answer a Q, 2mins for feedback (a bit reminiscent of musical chairs)
– and CV cover letter workshops – where students showed the employers their cover letter examples
– the buzz is evident I hope from the picture of the speed interviews below

We joined the first Hepple rewilding/wilding project bioblitz looking at “Meg’s purple moorgrass and rushy pastures” (as we now call them). She is doing her dissertation with Marjorie from Natural England, characterising this under-described, under-appreciated (not by Marjorie) northern habitat. Getting our heads around the sedges again: flea, carnation, flaccid, common, tawny, yellow x2, common, brown – think I must have missed one

Meg and I had the tiniest taste of the gin, cos it seemed wrong not to …

… and I just spotted Ho Yin’s clever Twitter handle! His dissertation is on orchids, there were plenty of them too

Out with stage 1 after a break of two years on my Investigating Rural Landscapes field trip module. It is so good to see them learning in the field again, and discovering that soil is much more interesting than they dreamed – thanks to my inspiring colleague, Dr Julia Cooper. Here we are at Cockle Park Farm