The End of 3rd Year

As of Thursday, I will have finished my third year at  Plymouth University. This year has been pretty good, I think, and certainly an improvement on last year. It's gone so fast! I've become much closer with people on my course this year, which is sad in a way because a fair number of them will be leaving (I'm on the 4-year course, provided that I do well enough in my exams). Despite that, I can say that I've had a wonderful time with them and I will miss them all greatly.

The first term of this academic year was spent working on my dissertation and other pieces of coursework, which included learning to use industry standard software and presenting our recommendations for a well in Louisiana, learning to manipulate and analyse data in ArcGIS, and analysing geophysical anomalies.

I also turned 21. My parents came to visit and brought me a cake.

Second term kicked off with handing in my dissertation (we handed ours in really early compared to everyone else...), closely followed by more coursework deadlines. My dissertation was centred on the Western Redhills Centre on the Isle of Skye, and resulted in 10,000 words and an A2 sized map, as well as several boxes of rocks that I'm not entirely sure what to do with. I'm not expecting much more than a 2:1 on it, even though I think it deserves more because I worked in much greater detail on my mountain and surrounding lava fields than in the literature. Oh well. I won't find out the results for it until August, apparently.

Exactly a week after my dissertation was handed in, I gave in a 10 page report on the Tertiary dyke swarm in Ireland. I got the highest mark in the year for it, but I did have an advantage in that it was basically the same geology as in my dissertation. Still, it was good fun to write and a relatively easy to do as it was largely based in literature.

In February, I applied for a working-holiday to Japan, which was approved! You can read about the application here.

In March, I went on a whole two days of fieldwork. I hadn't chosen the Advanced Fieldwork module, so I didn't go anywhere else this year. We went up to Dartmoor to run a geophysical survey across some sulphide ores using a range of equipment. One thing I will say is that Dartmoor in March is horrible. We had a painfully cold wind and the odd dousing of rain which made it really unpleasant at times. Despite that, we worked really well as a team and came out with a decent report at the end.

A little later that month, I worked with another group to present our only piece of coursework for the geohazards module, formed of an A0 poster and a 10 minute presentation. We were given free-range with it really, so we (I may have been an influence in this) settled on the 1994-present volcanic crisis at Popocatepetl. It was much more interesting than I thought it would be, and I'm pretty happy with the mark we got although it would have been useful to get some constructive criticism.

I've already done 2 of my 3 exams. The first was awful, the second was pretty good and I'm hoping the next one will be as well. Once the last one if out of the way, I get to go home for a day and a half, before getting on a bus to go to the airport and start my summer as an English teacher in Japan.

I'm aiming to try and keep this blog updated whilst I'm out there, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to. I'll do my best! I am also hoping to record some vlogs and keep things posted on instagram.