28 Mar 2019
Harriet is a postgraduate student here at the University studying for an MSc in Agricultural Technology and Innovation and she is charting her everyday life in a series of pictures.
22 March 2019
Location: Outside Porter's Lodge, RAU Campus
The RAU STARs (Support Team Advisor Reps) organised an event called Holi Land on campus to celebrate the Hindu Festival of Holi. Everyone got white t-shirts and bags of powdered paint. We spent the evening running after each other throwing paint around. It was so much fun. Although washing it all off was interesting.
20 March 2019
Location: Harnhill Manor Farm
My friend is working part-time lambing at the University farms and invited me along this week. It was so much fun and so rewarding even just doing it for a few hours. It has given me great livestock experience that will help me in my future career. It has also given me an increased appreciation of the long hours and hard work involved during lambing season.
17 March 2019
Location: Cirencester Rugby Football Club
It was our second ever match on Sunday, and our first home game. We played Melksham ladies again. But this time we scored so many more tries. I can’t believe how much we have improved over the last few weeks. We even ended the match with a few contested scrums.
14 March 2019
Location: The Parkinson Lecture Theatre, RAU Campus
After rugby training on Wednesday afternoon, I quickly got some dinner from the campus restaurant then went to a talk on autonomous agriculture. The talk was by Kieran Walsh from Velcourt Advisory Services. It was hosted by the IAgrE Western Branch who invited RAU students to come along, and I managed to get a few AgriTech society members to join. Kieran told us all about Hands Free Hectare at Harper Adams University and why autonomous farming machinery will be so important in the future.
12 March 2019
Location: The Careers Office, RAU Campus
I recently realised that developing a new AgriTech product and setting up my own business, may be a bit unrealistic to do straight after finishing my Masters. So, I decided that it would be best to go and get a job for a few years! However, deciding what I want to do and what to apply for hasn’t been easy. In my last job I realised that I hate sitting behind a desk all day, and that was one of my reasons for doing an agricultural based course in the first place. But, I also want something where I still get to problem solve, work with lots of people, and earn enough money that I can save up to invest in my business (if I decide to go back to it). I have had a couple of conversations with lecturers who have been really useful in telling me what roles are out there and giving me advice. On Monday, I went to the careers office and had a great chat with Ruth. She showed me some places to keep an eye on, helped me rejig my CV a bit, and gave me some advice on cover letters.
10 March 2019
Location: Laundrette, RAU Campus
To complete my very exciting week (not), Sunday was laundry day. I’m not going to lie, one of the most annoying things about being a student is having to carry your washing to a campus laundrette and hoping there is one free. At least with the app on the new washing machines I can see when the washing is finished on my phone.
9 March 2019
Location: My room, RAU Campus
There were some big social events on this week, but due to the dreaded lurgy I was in my room for most the week. It did mean that I got to watch a few movies and finish a 1000 piece jigsaw, although I did lose a couple of the pieces. And a big shout out to my friend who went and fetched me some dinner from the canteen on the day I felt the most poorly.
28 February 2019
Location: Cirencester Rugby Football Club
Rugby training has been really busy since our first game. There is a real team spirit and we are rapidly developing our skills. In Thursday’s training session we learnt how to do lineouts and then got really muddy in a small game at the end. Most of us stayed around after for some food and a beer in the club house which was really nice.
25 February 2019
Location: Bledisloe Lawn, RAU
The weather was beautiful on Monday so many RAU students appeared on Bledisloe Lawn. It felt like summer throwing a ball around in the sunshine. Although we were reminded that it was actually still only February when the sun set at 5.30pm.
24 February 2019
Location: Melksham Rugby Club
I had my first ever rugby match on Sunday. It’s the first year RAU has had a women’s rugby team, so we have all been busy learning the game over the last few months. Even though it was our first game we did really well and even scored a try! So it was all smiles on the bus home.
23 February 2019
Location: Porters Café Bar, Cirencester
My friends from my previous job in Oxford visited this weekend. I showed them around Cirencester town centre. We had lunch and a pint in Porters and then had an amazing hot chocolate in Drizzle Chocolate. We then went back to Oxford and had a lovely evening playing monopoly and eating curry. It is nice that Oxford is quite close to Cirencester.
12 February 2019
Location: Outside the lecture halls, RAU Campus
This year I have been starting up a new RAU society, called the AgriTech society. On Tuesday I set up a stand outside the main lecture block to try and get people to sign up. It was a successful morning and lots of people were interested in the drone and SunScanner I used to promote the society.
11 February 2019
Location: Kew Gardens
Instead of the normal Monday morning lecture for my crop production module, our lecturer took my course on an off-site visit to Kew Gardens. We got a tour around the labs and shown the DNA bank, wood collection and Fungi collection.
8 February 2019
Location: Boutflour Hall, RAU Campus
To end the first semester and January exams there is something called RAG week. There are no lectures in this week and there are several events organised to raise money for charity. One of these was the RAU take-me-out night. Boutflour Hall was full of people that came to watch as students popped balloons over whether they wanted to go on a date with the single guy to “Fernandos”.
7 February 2019
Location: Boutflour Hall, RAU Campus
On Thursday some of the postgraduate courses worked together to put on the RAU Soil and Food Security Conference. It was a great success, we had international speakers and around 80 delegates. I chaired the conference so spent the day sat on stage in front of everyone.
3 February 2019
Location: my room on campus
I’ve been busy writing my last piece of coursework for the semester. It’s been the only piece which I haven’t been able to find a way to link it to cows but it’s a nice reminder of being an undergrad. I can’t wait for it to be finished so I can have a beer and give the library half its books back!
1 February 2019
Location: RAU Campus front lawn
We got loads of snow on the morning before my exam. Fortunately, it was all still there when I finished so me and a friend made Hubert. Campus is so beautiful in the snow.
29 January 2019
Location: Pershore College
Today some of my course (MSc Agricultural Technology and Innovation) and the GCA graduate diploma in agriculture) course went on a trip to Pershore College. We got shown around their new Agri-tech centre which included an indoor vertical farm and a hydroponic system.
22 January 2019
Location: Telford
In order to do some market research for my business I decided to go on a trip up to Telford for the British Cattle Breeders Club Conference. The three-day conference was really interesting and speakers included the NFU president and UK Chief Veterinary Officer.