Seven questions with Rico Hodges-Smikle

This week, meet Rico Hodges-Smikle who is studying a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences with a major in Health and Environment and a minor in Societies.

As part of his studies, Rico has recently finished working on a consultancy project to improve maritime safety that may help to save hundreds of lives at sea.

1. Why are you interested in Arts and Sciences and what do you plan to do in the future?

I'm interested in Arts and Sciences for the simple reason that it's not focused on just one subject area. As it's an interdisciplinary degree we get given the opportunity to study an incredibly wide breadth of subjects and then through our core modules learn how to apply our knowledge base to tackle problems in creative ways.

I've always been interested in a number of different disciplines and while on Arts & Sciences I've had the chance to figure out exactly what I'm suited for and also importantly what I'm not. My overall focus on my degree has been behavioural science, but as a part of that I've studied everything from geography to international relations, bioengineering to game theory, anthropology to entrepreneurship. Finding the links between these subjects isn't straight forward at first, but given time you learn how to find the connections that allow you to come up with novel approaches to given tasks.

I'm honestly undecided about my future plans. I'd love to work abroad, hopefully in South America or Africa sometime in the near future. In terms of what work I'd like to do, I'm fairly flexible but I'd be interested in behavioural consultancy or sustainability work.

2. What is the most interesting thing you've done, seen or got involved with while at UCL?

I recently finished working on a consultancy project for the CHIRP Charitable Trust. CHIRP is a maritime charity that focuses on improving maritime safety world-wide. It's a little known fact but collisions between vessels at sea happen far more often that people think and cost hundreds of lives and millions of pounds every year.

I worked on the project with Vin Walsh, a professor of human brain research here at UCL, and three other BASc undergrads. We created a report that focused on how to decrease perceptual and human errors at sea on the part of crew, in hope that the given advice will help decrease collision rates and keep seafarers safe.

The project itself was incredible. We got to cross the Dover-Calais Channel multiple times, both during the day and at night to gain insights into how the conditions on-board vessels affects the working environment and could potentially affect the perception and abilities of the crew. We also got to work on one of the world's most advanced naval and shipping simulators, which was incredibly insightful for our research on perception and also a good bit of fun to play around with when all our experiments were finished.

All of this, along with various interviews with shipping industry professionals and seafarers, culminated in our report which has been endorsed by Lloyds London and has been commissioned to have 57,000 copies printed and distributed globally to hundreds of maritime agencies. Completing this project in just under three months was challenging, but the personal and professional experience I gained was far beyond what I could have expected. The fact that the work we produced may help to save hundreds of lives at sea makes this project one of my proudest achievements at UCL.

3. What advice would you give to an undergraduate student hoping to pursue a research career?

Keep an open mind about what avenue of research to follow. While something may not sound interesting on paper, in practice you'd be amazed at how an area of research turns out. My entire team knew absolutely nothing about the maritime industry and I wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a fascinating. It's far more complex than most of us realise and vital for the standard of living we've become accustomed to in London.

I'd also say don't be discouraged by having a lack of expertise in what you may view as the most important subject area for a project. Being able to approach problems within a research setting from a multitude of viewpoints was vital for us to be able to produce a report that would be accessible to a wider audience and will hopefully have tangible results.

4. Have you discovered any hidden gems during your time at UCL?

Hmm, there are quite a few, but I think they're mostly known at this point.

The Archaeology library is probably the most quiet study space in UCL, it's easily one of my favourite study spaces.

It's not UCL, but if you're a UCL student and haven't been to the SOAS and Birkbeck facilities, you're missing out. The SOAS bar in particular is great - I like the vibe and it plays a much wider variety of music than the UCLU bars.

Oh, and going to comedy in Leicester Square during the week is great fun. On the weekends the crowds tend to be more uptight, tend to heckle more and give the comedians less to work with, but during the week it's good craic and you occasionally have quite big names in comedy come through to practice their material.

5. Give us your top three things to do/see/go to in London:

Go to Dotori in Finsbury park. It's pretty much packed all the time, so much so that you can't make reservations anymore, but if you manage to get a seat you will not be disappointed. It's a Korean-Japanese fusion restaurant and the food is amazing, especially for the price.

If you're a cyclist, Critical Mass is something you have to do at least once if you live in London. It happens on the last Friday of every month and is essentially a giant political protest ride where you and a few hundred, sometimes thousands, other cyclists meet up and essentially take over some of the biggest streets in London. To my understanding it started as and still is a peaceful protest to promote greater awareness around road safety and cyclists, but beyond that it's simply a lot of fun. There is often music, people cycling in costumes and for bicycle enthusiasts that's where you can see some of the most stylish custom built bikes all in one place.

Lastly I'm into amateur photography, so one of my favourite things to do is just walk around in an area I don't know at all and get some shots. Throw some headphones in, put your phone on airplane mode and just start walking. That's how you find some true hidden gems in London.

6. Who inspires you and why?

While I have no aspirations to be involved in the music business whatsoever, Chance the Rapper is pretty inspiring to me. He's won multiple Grammys having never actually sold any of his music, he regularly gives back to Chicago's public school system, he does loads of charity work, hosted SNL, and he collaborates with a wide range of musicians to simply make whatever music he feels like - not just hip hop. He's shaken up the music industry, is one of my top 10 artistes of the past decade and has done all this in his early twenties. He did it with pure and unwavering passion for his craft and the single minded goal of being a positive force in the world. Even writing that it feels like a naïve aspiration to have had, but he's managed to pull it off and that's pretty inspiring.

7. What would it surprise people to know about you?

That my first name is not Rico (which is my middle name), it's actually Graham. It's not exactly something I hide, but whenever my friends find out they're visibly shocked for some reason.

That or the fact that I originally moved to the UK for culinary school.