Workshop: Business Plans

Review

This workshop was centered around the creation of a business plan, based on the mock business assigned to us on the Dragon’s Den Workshop session held in the previous week. The aim of the session was to build upon the pre-existing idea for a business and produce a plan for a viable business.

This included:

• A value proposition – what niche does our business fill.
• A method of reaching customers and expanding our business.
• The similarities and differences between our business and ‘rival’ businesses.
• Revenue streams – how our business will make money.
• Financial forecasts – how much profit we expect to make after X amount of time.
• What we need to make our business work – overheads, staff, facilities etc.

Each individual in the group produced their own business plan based up on the structure and style of example business plans provided in the workshop and individual resources and research done independently.

Opinions

I found the workshop to be useful as I have never produced a business plan before so it was helpful to do a mock one. It has given me an insight in to some of the more intricate details and considerations required when considering opening and maintaining a successful business, particularly the financial aspects of maintaining a business.

Career

I feel that this has been helpful for me and my future career goals. It is my intention to open and run my own business in the future, naturally the formation of a business plan and a clear cost structure will be part of this so I feel that this workshop has given me invaluable experience in this regard. I am now more aware of what business plans require and how to work through developing each section of the business plan.

Workshop: CV writing skills.

Review

The final workshop in the series was dedicated to the writing and production of higher quality and more effective CVs and covering letters. This was achieved by focusing on avoiding common mistakes, cliches and pit-falls. We were given sample CVs and covering letters of varying quality to critique and analyse and asked to rank them in order based on how good we thought they were.

At the end of the session the group mutually decided which were the most important criteria for creating an effective CV, those criteria were:

• CVs must be succinct yet cover enough relevant information.
• Information on the CV must be a truthful and honest representation of yourself.
• Make sure to utilise all relevant experiences, drawing from different areas to demonstrate key skills.
• CVs and covering letters that are tailored to a specific role or position are more likely to be more effective than a ‘shotgun approach’.
• Be sure to include up-to-date contact information.
• To only include relevant information for the application.
• Include covering letters (where required).
• Covering letters must show interest and be a short summary of why you are applying and what you can offer.
• Be certain (I have, I can, I will).

We believe these criteria will make a CV more effective and more likely to be remembered when it comes to consideration for the position applied for.

Opinion

I found the session to be useful and engaging as I have written many CVs already in my life (with varying successes). Being given advice from people within industry on how to stand out and make become more employable in today’s job market is a useful skill to have.

Career

I feel that this workshop will help me in my career as it will hopefully make the transition from education to full time employment much smoother and will hopefully lead to me being more successful when applying for jobs in the future.

‘Role in genomics in forest resilience to Sprucebud Worm outbreaks in North America.’ – John Mackay.

6^th March 2015.

Review

This seminar focused primarily on new research in to genomic factors within various species of spruce tree that have lead to an increased resistance to outbreaks of the predatory spruce budworm (Choristoneura spp.). The speaker outlined that the number of tree and plant pests are increasing year upon year in the United States of America, Canada and Great Britain with some blaming the impact of globalisation.

The Spruce budworm on a pine tree.

The major cause of this phenomenon is currently attributed to warmer winters, this causes some plant predators which usually struggle to survive in colder weather to have a much improved survival rate. This is particularly evidenced with the Mountain Pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) higher winter temperatures across areas of North America have permitted the species to survive the winter months in greater numbers than before, this has enabled them to spread across the Rocky mountains from the USA in to parts of Canada.

This is problematic as in Canada the Mountain Pine beetle and endemic species of Pine tree have not be able to co-evolve, this leads to the trees initially having rather primitive defence mechanisms in response to attack from a new predator.

The Moutain Pine Beetle and one of the burrows made by the species.

Similar circumstances have lead to large increases in the numbers of Sprucebud Worm a deflorative pest. Over 85 million hectares of Spruce trees were lost in the Quebec province of Canada to the impact of the Sprucebud Worm between in 1970 and 1980, the total value of the lost spruce trees is estimated to be around $380,000,000 ($CAD).

More recently however an increase in resistance to Sprucebud worm attacks has been observed in native Spruce trees, this is demonstrated by a lower number of Sprucebud worm related tree deaths and an increase in trees recovering from attack as well as resistant trees.

Genomic analysis showed that new variants of phenolic compounds were formed in resistant trees that were not present in non-resistant trees and only present in small amounts in recovering trees. Piceol was formed in place of the usual Picein and Pingenol in place of Pingenin. Both these new compounds were discovered in larger quantities during June and July, around the time of Sprucebud worm population growth. It is believed that the formation of these compounds is driven by the pgβGlu-1 gene which was highly expressed in resistant trees leading to the coding of β-glucosidase 40. The pgβGlu-1 gene was expressed in significantly smaller quantities in non-resistant trees.

Research is still ongoing in the study and a lot of the mechanisms remain unclear and unexplained, this is partially due to the large and complex genomes of the species of trees in the study.

Opinions

I found this talk to be interesting as it really highlights the economical as well as the ecological implications regarding the successful management of pests and predators. I feel this area of research is important as it has far reaching implications around the world.

Career

I may be interested in pursuing a career in this line of research as I find a genetic and genomic approach to pest management and species conservation much more in-line with my skills and interest than other conventional methods.

Workshop: Dragon’s Den.

Review

The third workshop in the series was focused around forming a viable business plan around a set business, in our case – overseeing the transformation of Treborth botanical gardens in to a zoo, the task was to be completed within the time constraints provided at the start of the session. This task required working closely within a team and providing and gathering ideas to bring our business forwards, as a team we had to formulate a plan and record an ‘elevator pitch’ a short, succinct pitch lasting around 2 minutes focusing on the key aspects of our business plan and our value proposition.

Secondly, the team had to plan and present a pitch directly to the ‘dragons’ – a panel consisting of local business owners and faculty members of the universities employability department. After each pitch the group were then questioned by the members of the panel and the audience about parts of their business proposition.

Opinions

I found the exercise helpful to me as it was a good introduction to the key aspects and the process required to from a good business plan, a concept which previously was unfamiliar to me. Another positive from the exercise was the ability of the tasks to take group members out of their comfort zone, particularly with the presenting and elevator pitch tasks, which I personally consider to be a weakness of mine, so therefore found it useful to practise and gain more experience. The workshop involved lots of other transferable skills such as group work, problem solving and meeting deadlines.

Career

I feel the workshop will be beneficial to me and my future as I would one day like to run my own business, which will require skills such as creating a business plan, coming up with a unique selling point (USP) and value proposition for the business, I found this extremely beneficial to do this in a mock environment.

Workshop: Careers Café.

Review

The second workshop in the series offered us, the current students, an insight in to life after university in the form of a question and answer session involving a panel of graduates who were all either in employment or involved in post graduate education. Two members of the panel were enrolled in post graduate research, one in teaching and another in the behavioural studies of wolves, the remaining members of the panel consisted of ex-Biomedical science students who had since found work in the microbiology labs in a local hospital. The session focused on making the transition from university in to the workplace or further study, each graduate highlighted the key skills that they required and needed to demonstrate to potential employers and advice on how to gain and demonstrate these skills.

Opinion

I found the workshop useful to me as it was interesting to hear the views and the experiences of people who were in a similar position to myself and that had successfully made the transition from university via a number of different routes of entry. It was useful to hear first hand about applying for masters degrees as I had previously found available information to be unclear and sometimes misleading. I also found it encouraging to see the success of previous Bangor University graduates.

Career

I believe what I learned in the workshop will be of use to me when applying for jobs as I will personally be taking a post graduate masters in the coming academic year, as did some of the students on the panel. I found the advice regarding funding and searching for post graduate positions closely linked with potential jobs particularly useful.

‘Explaining the high diversity of rainforest trees.’ – Owen T. Lewis.

13^th February 2015.

Review

The session focussed on current ideas as to how rainforests can successfully sustain such a high diversity of trees in such a relatively close proximity to one another. One aim of the study is that gaining a greater understanding of plant diversity will therefore provide a greater insight and understanding in to animal and insect diversity.

The initial question as to why rainforest tree diversity is so high, is intriguing as all species of plant life within the population all compete for the same key resources, space, sunlight, water and soil nutrients, however a higher species diversity is maintained than would be expected.

The Janzen-Connell hypothesis suggests that the survival and growth of seedling is distant dependent, the hypothesis states that the closer the seedlings to the parent tree, the higher the density of host specific predators and pathogens, therefore the lower the chance of survival of seedlings. There is a ‘sweet spot’ an optimal distance from the parent tree for survival and growth of seedlings. This theory was in part proven by the research team in Belize using a variety of fungicides and insecticides to decrease the number of pathogens near to the parent tree.

Due to the increased chance of survival for those seedlings that are dispersed greater distances from the parent tree, it is therefore unlikely that when the parent tree dies it will be replaced by its own species, it is increasingly likely that another species will utilise the space instead. This phenomenon prevents any one species becoming too dominant within the population, which as a result helps to maintain a high species diversity.

Opinions

I found the session to be of use to me as it highlighted an idea that I had not offered much thought to, the driving factors and the science behind the mechanisms of the high species diversity were interesting to me and presented new ways of thinking.

Career

I could not see myself pursuing a career in ecology (and conservation) as I feel it does not link as closely to my degree and interests as other fields of biology do.

‘Going with the flow – Algae, Viruses, Fuels, Foods and Faeces.’ – Mike Allen.

5^th December 2014.

Review

The seminar was hosted by Mike Allen of Plymouth University who is currently doing research in conjunction with the AVARICE project. The AVARICE project focuses on the use of algae as part of algal based technology for use in the production of biofuels, as well as a natural form of bioremediation for polluted waterways.

Work initially started in an ongoing process of analysing the largely unknown algal genomes, where it was discovered that the vast majority of algal genes were novel in their function and design. The team has also been responsible for utilising genetically modified (GM) algae for synthesising Omega-3 fatty acids as well as alternative fuels.

Algal biofuels are however currently limited compared to other biofuels in that they are energy intensive and more expensive, but do overcome some of the limitations observed when using plants as a potential source for alternative fuel production.

Algae have also been show to successfully bioremediated waters polluted by acid mine drainage (AMD).

The AVARICE project is also currently working on a vortex bioreactor utilising algae as a bioremediation tool to clean and disinfect polluted water supplies, particularly in less economically developed countries.

Opinions

I personally found Mike and the rest of the teams work to be very interesting and something which I myself would have an interest in pursuing as a career. This area of research compliments my degree well, biotechnology, and it is an area that I would find very rewarding, given the chance to improve so many peoples lives.

Career

I would like to find out more about this field of study, both the engineering and the genetic modification of organisms for industrial use and societal benefit as it is an area of work that I’d be interested in forging a career.

‘Hiding in the crowd: Anti-predator aggregation in animals’ – Lesley J. Morrell.

21^st November 2014.

Review

This seminar studied the anti-predation tactics employed by species of prey to defend themselves against predators. The primary example used for this session was the shoaling of schools of fish, this is an example of the dilution effect, this is a defence mechanism against olfactory predators as it allows the fish to appear as a single, much larger entity which may act as a deterrent to the predator.

It has also been recorded that fish use areas of sensory refuge to further deter olfactory predators, this includes positioning themselves within tidal currents and areas of turbulence which can make it harder for predators to find the exact location of the fish.

A school of Goldband Fusiliers showing anti-predation behaviour.

Predators often target oddities, fish that swim slower, are slightly bigger, slightly smaller, have smaller fins or are different colours have a greater chance of being more conspicuous to a predator, fish have been shown to swim with shoals of matched sizes to avoid becoming the oddity and more prone to being targeted. Predators however generally attack from the outside of a shoal to access the middle of the shoal, where there is a much greater probability of success.

The secondary example used for this session were frogs and how they have been shown to cluster together to form small groups, the clusters then move to limited domains of danger, increasing their distance from threats and predators to the greatest distance possible. This is known as the selfish heard as frogs do not interact as a group but instead use it to minimize their own chances of being predated upon.

Opinion

I found this lecture interesting as it was not something that I had ever considered and I found in interesting to learn more about the mechanics between predators and prey, particularly in such a densely populated environment as an aquatic one.

Career

Although it is not a field of study that I had ever considered for a future career, I did find it interesting and it would be something that I would be prepared to study further and then evaluate career options and my levels of interest as a later stage when I knew more about the subject area and the career opportunities available.

Workshop: Interviews, Assessment Centers & Psychometric tests.

Review

The first workshop in the series was based around the assessment centre method commonly used by some employers. The assessment centres commonly place applicants in mixed groups and make them undergo group activities focused on team-work/building. The activities may be used to place candidates out of their comfort-zone and may be weighted to people with desirable skill sets or attributes. The idea of the test centre is that each individual is assessed and scrutinized throughout the entire period by a number of assessors, an advantage of the test centre is that assessors can watch how candidates interact with one another and as a team.

The first activity in the workshop was undergoing mock interviews in front of and marked by a panel of three peers. The interviews were based on randomly selected questions that commonly occur in interviews. After each interview, feedback was given and one of the interviewers swapped roles with the interviewee.

Another feature of the workshop was the use of psychometric tests, the psychometric test used in this instance was the Belbin test. The test involves answering a set of questions where the user ranks from 1-5 how relevant they feel each answer is to them, when all the questions are completed the answers are added together to give a total score in each category which in turn relates to a set of personality traits.

Opinion

I found the assessment centre theme useful to me as it is not something I have experienced before so was unfamiliar to me and was useful to experience it in a mock situation.

The results of the Belbin test placed me as a company worker/completer-finisher, I found that this did indeed match my personality well, the results of the test are of use to me as it allows me to see my strengths and weaknesses – as well as other peoples, and areas that I may improve. The mock interview was an important exercise as although I am relatively experienced in being interviewed I rarely have received feedback. I found it useful being on the opposite side of an interview, doing some interviewing as it highlights common mistakes made and how I should go about avoiding them.

Career

I feel that the workshop will help me get a job as it allows me to better break-down and understand the interview and assessment process that some employers use. I found in useful to know the role that i fulfill in a team and areas where i should consciously focus on improvement.

‘Quantifying the impact of non-native European hares on the endemic Irish hare’ – Anthony Caravaggi.

17^th October 2014.

Review

The seminar approached the question of whether the European hare Lepus europaeus, and its increasing prevalence in Ireland was in part responsible for the depleting population size of the distinct, endemic species of hare, the Irish mountain hare – Lepus timidus hibernicus, Irelands only endemic lagomorph species. Population estimates of the numbers of Irish mountain hare in 2007 predicted that there were less than 1 million individuals remaining. Conversely the population sizes of European hares have increased greatly over the past 5 years.

The European Hare – Lepus europaeus

The Irish Mountain Hare – Lepus timidus hibernicus

Other factors suspected to be responsible for the decline in population size of the Irish mountain hare is the increase in agricultural intensification and the homogenization of the landscape – which has lead to decreasing population sizes in Irish hares since 1970.

European hares have previously been recorded to have out-competed and as a consequence displaced the Mountain hare out of Sweden. The European hare has been known to transmit diseases to the Irish hare and their presence can help to exacerbate the effects of climate change by displacing the Irish hare to higher altitudes or differing terrains. Hybridization does occur naturally between populations, but the offspring are unidirectional in favour of the European hare.

In the experiment by Caravaggi and his team camera trapping and the random encounter model (REM) were used to monitor the population densities, these methods are favourable as they decrease observer impact and do not require the identification of individuals in a population.

Results from the monitoring techniques supports claims of direct displacement, especially within the center of the population.

Opinion

I found the seminar to be enjoyable and interesting and was delivered well by the speaker, I thought that the camera trapping technique was interesting in its application and the experiment incorporated and used key biological principles well and has important findings for conservation techniques.

Career

Despite me finding the subject interesting I would not like to go down this route in my career, as I would prefer to extend and further my techniques and interest in the field of micro and molecular biology.