January 2017 was the start of my Industrial Placement year. In between my second and final years of studying Biology I was to spend a year working for Natural England gaining fieldwork experience and basically finding out what the world of work was really like for biologists.
Getting my placement was difficult; my University had never had students do an ecology based placement before. So I spent many months sending emails to prospective employers, and receiving replies from the ones that got back to me that explained that they didn't take on year in industry students and had no framework for it. Even Natural England, when they came to my rescue at the last minute, hadn't done this before and didn't know what to expect anymore than I did.
Though it may have taken a long time to organise I am now, as I write this, a month into my 30 week placement and have already learnt a lot. Despite the difficulty in getting a placement, a year in industry is a really useful experience - aside from not doing lab work I have very little idea of where I want to go with my Biology degree. My time at Natural England will not only give me a taste of some of my options for working in Ecology but also give me more of that experience that employers so desperately want from students straight out of University.
And even more than that, put simply, I'm enjoying it.
So for those of you out there who are considering a placement - either to do as part of your degree or to offer with your company - and for those of you who are just interested in Biology, academically or not, here is the story of my time at Natural England as well as interesting posts about our natural England.
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