BCUR Conference 2016: Shakespeare’s Snails

Before I get straight into the events of the day, I will start off this post by saying what an absolute honour it was to be representing York St John at Manchester Metropolitan University for the BCUR Conference 2016 in March. It was such a wonderful day out and a fantastic opportunity to learn about the different research methods that people from around the UK and further have carried out on their chosen subjects. It is definitely a day that I will never forget as part of my university experience.

The day started by meeting up with our group and getting an early train through to Manchester from York Station where we eventually arrived at the university and signed in at the registration point. We were then treated to an hour long welcome and keynote speech about the history of the BCUR Conference, the influences which led to its formation and their targets and ambitions for the future coming years. This speech was metaphorically themed around Shakespeare’s Hamlet in a very inspiring fashion and it certainly set the tone for the rest of the day!

We were then given a half an hour break before the research talks were to start, so we used this time wisely to check out the poster presentations that were on display next to the registration point which allowed a collective discussion with the presenters and the visitors over research findings, methods and overall results.

After this break was over, the actual research talks were set to start. This involved four talks taking place over an hour in each of the nine rooms, giving you the chance to switch from room to room throughout the presenting breaks in order to see the presentation which you wanted to see.

The first phase of talks I attended involved detailed research in ‘Predicting Statistics Anxiety among Psychology Students’, ‘A mixed-methods enquiry into same-gender sexual violence and consent’ and then a look into ‘Male and female murderers in newspapers: are the portrayed differently?’. Within these talks I learned a different range of new information based on all studies, such as how people define consent with regards to the second talk in the above list, and also the struggles of surveying, e.g. for the first talk I saw, they struggled because their survey participants were predominantly female so that can affect whether fair results are carried out.

After these phase one, we were treated to a delicious catered meal in the dining area, which just delineates how big the building was that we were in when it managed to cater for everyone attending with minimal fuss.

After the meal, we then set off to see the afternoon presentations taking place. This began with an insightful talk I saw based on the performance and efficiency of a programming software for media called ‘MaxMSP’, which was very interesting from a personal perspective as I’ve always been closely related to musical software and recording devices throughout my life and I’ve had past experience in using this software before on projects. This talk was followed by a presentation on research conducted on ‘fashion sustainability and consumer behaviour’ which was again interesting in terms of my business degree background, and then another music-themed talk took place based on the research findings and history of ‘Transferring analogue tape to digital media for archival’ which again I found very intriguing as a big fan of the analogue era.

The final talks I then saw after this included ‘The effect of seasonal change and stress on snails’, ‘Mapping Interference Patterns to Aid Conservation, using a CubeSat in Low Earth Orbit’ and ‘Why we should rethink the state of Dance, Drama and Music’. Like all previous talks before this bunch, I found the levels of research fascinating and the findings and results were unique to their own field of interest.

Following the conclusion of the conference, we began our safe journey back home to York. Once again, I can’t thank ADD enough for the opportunity to attend something like this, especially Holly Campbell for helping arrange our travel and making sure we got to Manchester and back in one piece! This is certainly an experience I would recommend to anyone!