my *biology* experience

Biology was my "thing".
An interested browse through my high school results yielded some interesting data.
As a trend, Biology was my worst science subject (more times than not).
Physics was my best, and Chemistry was somewhere in the middle.
I guess Biology really was one of those subjects where you had to devote a fair bit of time into memorising content.
Even if you did understand the concepts well, it still wouldn't help unless you knew the complex names involved.
Yes, that's what I'll go with.
I did bad in Biology because I was too lazy to read anything.
It definitely didn't help when I chose to pursue Physics and Chemistry in Year 12,
but not Biology.
So I thought it would be interesting to see how my experience was with Biology
when I decided to take it up (again) in my first year of uni.

An Australian Magpie (Cracticus tibicen) wandering around,  foraging for food.
It's aggressive, territorial and Oh my God those bloodshot eyes!

As part of my Environmental Science degree,
I undertook two Biology units this year:
Frontiers in Biology and Plant and Animal Biology.
I was nervous.
My very first uni lecture was Biology...
and I was late for it.
I sat at the left end of the lecture theatre because the place was packed.
I couldn't see half the screen and I didn't know anyone.
Scary.
I went to my next lecture, trying to remain optimistic.
And that definitely backfired.
Note to self, casually taking notes in lecture is not what it looks like in videos.
Let's just say, I walked out of the lecture feeling like I'm an imposter at university.


Okay, that's enough depressing stuff.
Biology actually turned out pretty good.
It was interesting (wow. why didn't I study back then?).
But most of all, the units were really engaging.
There were guest lecturers (researchers at the top of their respective fields).
There were fascinating labs (my very first DNA extraction from strawberries).
And the projects were fun (writing our first journal paper after analysing citizen science data).
We also covered biodiversity, cells, DNA and evolution in our lectures.
These concepts got progressively more complicated,
but I've had some great friends to help me get through it.
All the way till the day before my finals.
And I did quite well in it.
So overall, I was really happy with it.
Even better, my team's journal paper got published on our mini-journal, Cygnus.
Now it's online for future students to read and plagiarise.
This will probably be my only 'publication'.
But it's definitely better than nothing.

The Gymea Lily (Doryanthes excelsa) standing tall outside the Ken and Julie Michael Building, UWA.
I wrote a journal paper with my team in BIOL1130: Frontiers in Biology, analysing the reliability of D. excelsa sightings
submitted to citizen science project, ClimateWatch.

Here is a video of my lecturer, Prof. Nicki Mitchell, explaining the journal project we did.

In my second semester, I continued with Plant and Animal Biology.
After doing well in my previous semester, I was quite excited about this.
Its Biology, only more focused on parts that I was interested in:
flora and fauna.
Two words: Difficulty Spike!
There was definitely a whole lot more memorising.
So it's a bit of a trade-off then.
I get to learn stuff I'm more interested in,
but I'll have to memorise more stuff as well.
It's a good thing the unit coordinators decided to spice things up.
We got to build our very own animals (Build-A-Beast), field trips, there were so many lecturers involved (7 lecturers in a single unit).
My personal favourite would be W/Prof. Kingsley Dixon,
who works over at Kings Park and Botanic Gardens.
He gave incredibly cool lectures, and brought tons of different plants to show us.

It didn't stop there.
The unit organised various events and activities to get us interested for postgraduate studies in Biology.
There was the Postgrad Cameo, where a PhD student comes in and give a short presentation on their thesis every lecture.
And the Careers and Social Night, where...well, the name is quite self-explanatory.

The world's largest seed, from the sea coconut a.k.a Coco de Mer (Lodoicea maldivica).
It can weigh up to 20kg, and takes seven to ten years for the seed to germinate.
Brought to our BIOL1131: Plant and Animal Biology lecture by W/Prof. Kingsley Dixon.

Our Build-A-Beast Cephalopod, the Moody Quad-beak (Orthoceras mollibus).
It belongs to the extinct Order, Orthocerida.
We found him frozen in an iceberg and conducted some molecular tests (such as PCR)
to better understand its taxonomy.
*Note that the above description is completely fictional for the purpose of this project.

What can I say?
I had a really good time with Biology.
It was a good and priceless experience.
I really liked how the unit was taught and conducted.
And my lecturers are great.
Gosh I love them to bits!
I did find the Animal Biology exam to be a complete nightmare;
and the Plant Biology one to be the exact opposite.
But I really shouldn't be complaining.
They're successfully piqued my interest in both zoology and botany.
I'm grateful.
Biology is great.
Biology is life.

Yellow Kangaroo Paw (Anigozanthos pulcherrimus) basking in the sun at the UWA campus.
These pretty plants are endemic (native) the the southwest region of Western Australia.
One of my Plant Biology lectures, W/Prof. Stephen Hopper did his Honours thesis on Kangaroo Paw.

And I'll end this with a quote by my lecturer:

"It's never too early to start looking into postgraduate studies and future careers."

Nicki Mitchell, on my birthday.

*Update: My new layout looks rad! And I like the header art, even if I do say so myself.*

Listening to Thinking Out Loud - Ed Sheeran

Biology for Life,

TK