Sunday 6th April. 2am, North Haugh, St Andrews. I am herding a cohort of half asleep, half excited 3rd and 5th year students onto a dimly blue-lit coach headed for Edinburgh Airport and a dawn flight bound for Faro, Portugal. Thereafter, an onwards journey into Andalusia, southern Spain, alongside a couple of considerably more seasoned [...]
It's been an exciting first year in my PhD in Earth Sciences at the University of St Andrews, with many challenges - big and small - to be overcome, but I'm proud to say that I've recently passed the first hurdle and am ready to continue in my research journey unraveling the unknowns of explosive [...]
I hope I can be forgiven for this delayed update, but the first 3 months of my PhD have been a busy and exciting whirlwind! There have been undoubtedly intense lab days and more methodical office-based ones, but what I did not expect was just how much I would enjoy being back in academia, and [...]
The PhD begins... in Iceland. Earlier this year, I took-up an offer to study for a PhD in Earth Sciences at the University of St Andrews, starting in September. Indeed, I recently moved back to this beautiful town ready to begin this new chapter. However, it was last month that the research began as I [...]
This is quite a different post from the previous few, but I have some big and important news that marks the beginning of a new chapter: the PhD Adventure Files! Join me here as I begin to chart out my PhD journey into unknown yet incredibly exciting territory... The Big News Well, well. It's been [...]
Friday, 21st October marked the bicentenary of the 1822 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and was the inspiration for an interdisciplinary conference I attended at St. Anne’s College in Oxford. From Volcanology to Art to Literature – prose and poetry across the Grand Tour era – Vesuvius experts met from across the world to share illuminating [...]
If you’re thinking of applying to study Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, then this post is for you. With so many components to the application process to consider, and little guidance ‘out there’ for Earth Sciences, applying can seem daunting, mystical even. But here, I dispel some of those mysteries with experiential guidance [...]
In my previous post, I explored 5 key lessons for humanity I learnt studying Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford. But what is Earth Sciences? And why should you study it? In this post, Part 1 of a two-part series, I’ll answer these questions to dispel some of the confusion surrounding what Earth Sciences [...]
In July, I graduated from the University of Oxford with a master's degree in Earth Sciences. Studying our Earth reveals the complexities between its systems across time and space. Anthropogenic climate change exploits just how interconnected those systems are, and research suggests we are on schedule only to upset the balance further. Society needs more [...]
One brisk Saturday in February, I embarked on my first sports climbing meet to the Isle of Portland with the Oxford University Mountaineering Club (OUMC) – a day of adrenaline, ascents, and lessons learnt on the rock. About 40 climbers of varying levels of experience crammed into two minibuses and several volunteers' cars, leaving the [...]
Hi, and welcome to my site where I document a life lived adventurously in search of understanding the Earth. I invite you to share in my adventures, expeditions and exploration, to embrace the outdoors and the natural world, and to escape modern comforts (most of the time anyway). Along the way, I'll share extraordinary places [...]
Adventure Becca 