Ellen Gambles: A Grand Day Out
It was a pleasure to represent York St. John University at BCUR 2016, I am incredibly grateful to have had the chance to experience the event and witness other students’ undergraduate research. Although, the presentations did not display my particular topic area, it was fascinating to observe, watch and listen to all of the interesting and diverse topics students are researching. It helped further substantiate the importance of research and cemented my desire to complete a postgraduate degree.
Upon arriving at the event, we were welcomed and listened to Professor Stuart Hampton-Reeves’ keynote. The keynote presentation was centred on the influence of undergraduate research and the hopes and future plans for the conference. It drew upon many parallels of Shakespeare and his Hamlet… after all Hamlet, himself, was an undergraduate student!
After a short break mainly for refreshments, we moved onto the seminar presentations. Within the hour, I listened to presentations on choosing universities based upon sexuality, antimicrobial stewardship audit and how male and female murderers are portrayed in the newspapers. All of the seminars were interesting however my favourite was the latter presentation. How murderers are portrayed in the media is an interesting topic especially with famous cases like the Moors Murders and the Yorkshire Ripper. The findings the student presented were fascinating and I could see a lot of potential areas for future research.
Following the seminars, it was time for lunch! The building the seminars and lunch were taking place in was massive- to help you understand how big it was, it was similar to putting the entire York St. John campus into one building. Once lunch was finished, we had the chance to look around the poster presentations. The area was very compact often making it very claustrophobic however the topics and students willing to discuss their research were interesting and very accommodating.
Around 2:30pm was time for more seminars in which I listened to presentations on the crystallinity, colour and thickness of bone after incineration, open access on rate and fidelity of drug translation and the rise of the far-right in Germany. Again interesting presentations and I could see future areas for research. Unfortunately due to personal reasons, I had to leave early missing lots of other presentations and the end of the conference day.
However I thoroughly enjoyed my grand day out and would like to thank the staff at Manchester Metropolitan University for hosting the event, the undergraduate students for having the courage to present their work and Professor Stuart Hampton-Reeves for his wonderful keynote. I would also like to thank York St. John University and the Academic Development Department particularly Holly for setting up, attending and allowing me to go to this prestigious event.
