Kristin Vestermark BSc Biology, 2015

There were a number of reasons I chose to study Biology at the University of Southampton. Firstly, I’ve always been interested in topics related to biology. In addition, I knew I wanted to study in the UK, because it was relatively close to Sweden where my family is currently based but still somewhere new where I could begin an adventure of my own. While researching different universities, I found that Southampton had a very good reputation and the Biology course really appealed to me, especially the first year Spanish field trip.

There really has been countless opportunities to get involved with a variety of things that have not only enhanced my CV but also given me worthwhile and memorable experiences.

I don’t regret my decision at all! In fact my experience at Southampton has far exceeded my expectations. I feel very lucky to have lecturers who are passionate about their own research and able to share current findings related to the material we’re learning. Biology is a broad discipline and while we all start off studying similar modules in our first year, by the time you come to third year you have lot of freedom to choose the modules which you find most interesting. This is useful if you know what you want to work with in the future and the topics you want to focus on.

Apart from working towards my degree I have also been able to gain a huge variety of other experiences, many of which have strengthened my CV. In my first year, I joined the university’s Sub-Aqua Club and succeeded in obtaining my ocean diver qualifications. I also joined several of the dance societies and participated in the competition dance squads, travelling to different cities within the UK to compete against other universities and show what we had trained for as a team over the year. In the summer of my first year I applied to take part in an intensive Mandarin language course for beginners. That same summer, I was hired as a student blogger for the university’s Life at Southampton blog.

In my second year I took on the position of President of the Jazz Dance society and worked on my leadership skills and ability to work as a team with the other members on my committee. In the summer of my second year I went to Italy to collect data for my third year project and contributed to data collected for current and larger scale research for the WATBIO research project.

Now in my third year I have taken on the role of President of the University’s Green Action society and I’m excited to see what I can achieve with this opportunity over the year. There really has been countless opportunities to get involved with a variety of things that have not only enhanced my CV but also given me worthwhile and memorable experiences.

After starting work for my third year project, a career in research has become increasingly appealing to me. I’m hoping to go onto further study ideally with a PhD or possibly a Masters related to food or energy security and plants. It would be great to be in position in which my job was to work towards finding solutions to these challenges.