UCL FACULTY OF LIFE SCIENCES

I loved the BSc Zoology course at UCL. It gave me the opportunity to explore such a wide variety of subjects within this vast and fascinating field. I was also amazed by how supportive and friendly the department was.

I remained affiliated to UCL for my PhD on schistosomiasis, although the work for this was almost entirely carried out at the Natural History Museum. Still, I appreciated the chance to be able to nip back to UCL on occasion and feel part of the place.

If you're interested in research, do consider applying for one of the department's summer project bursaries. I did one with Roger Wotton on the processing of organic material by blackfly larvae, which was good fun, and it was a great introduction to the ups and downs of "proper" research. Similarly, be sure to opt for a research project in your final year and maybe explore a new subject area. By my final year I guess I was leaning towards a career in parasitological research, but I was curious about palaeontology too, so I took the opportunity to do a research project on a fossil coelacanth!

Criticisms of the course? Well, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish that a "statistics for biologists" course had been compulsory when I was at UCL. I avoided all such course options like the plague, but I'm really regretting it now.

You can't get very far in biological research without statistics! I also think that some sort of grounding in basic epidemiology would have been an advantage. I hear both of these issues have already been addressed, so that's great.

The sheer breadth of zoological training you get at UCL has probably led to my reluctance to over-specialise in the field. This is why I love my current research on avian malaria, which I'm carrying out in the Zoology Department at Oxford. I get to look at big and microscopically small organisms at the same time!

Just before finals, I remember someone telling us that never again would we know so much about the field of biology, the point being that beyond undergrad level you are forced to specialise to some degree. So - enjoy it while you can!

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