Ever since I was young
I’ve always been
fascinated by dolphins,
and as soon as I learnt
that to study a dolphin,
it’s marine biology,
I decided that’s
the course for me.
Marine biology covers
more animals and conditions
in the ocean,
whereas oceanography is a lot
more maths and physics-y
and then when you
combine the two together,
you get the whole picture
of what’s really going on.
So, most of my time,
I study at the National
Oceanography Centre,
which we call NOCs,
just to shorten it,
and that’s where all
the marine ocean scientists are.
So, we’ve got
geology, geophysics,
marine biology, oceanography.
There’s so much going on there,
we’ve got lots of boats,
lots of ribs.
We’ve got computer labs,
there’s a huge library,
I think it’s one
of the biggest in Europe
for oceanographic materials,
and then there’s a really
big canteen, restaurant,
café area that looks
out over the dock.
The people teaching us
on the course is
definitely a bonus.
For example, one
of my lecturers last year
is an expert in coral.
Not only is he an expert,
he’s the world expert,
so anything you want
to know about coral,
he will know.
It’s so lovely to see them
around the National
Oceanography Centre.
And if you’ve seen something
on the news or you’ve read one
of their papers and you
want to ask them a question,
they’re just there
and they’ll answer it
and they’re so happy
to tell you and to share
knowledge with you.
So, I’m a member
of both the kite surf
and the surf societies and we
regularly go on trips away
during the days and on weekends.
Some weekends, we’ll go
to Devon and we’ll surf,
or other weekends,
I’ve recently been to the Isle
of Wight to kite surf
when it’s windy.
Because it’s so close,
we can just check
the forecast and off we go.
We’ll message each other
and be, like,
what are we doing today?
What are our lectures?
And if the waves are good,
we’ll literally go
to our 9am,
we’ll go to Bournemouth
and surf for a few hours,
and then we’ll be back
at uni in the afternoon
and go to our 5pm lectures.
I’d like to be
a researcher and collect
my own data on whales
and dolphins and then maybe work
for an organisation
or start my own.
But then I’d really, I think,
love to come back
to Southampton or to another
university to be a lecturer
because I’ve just had such
a good experience with mine
that I want to be able to give
that to someone else as well.
