Prifysgol Bangor

All right, a few words on Bangor and some of my impressions being here as a second year sutrofor student. I'll also try to cover some aspects on a bit of everything, so academics, the place, the uni, etc.

My student life revolves around the School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography (SENRGY), located at the Thoday building below the main university hub (like below the hill) but closer to Bangor's High Street (one of the bussier streets). Across the street is the Deniol library, where (as you know by now) you'll be spending some fun quality time too. About Thoday, I'll just say it has a focal point at a common room equiped with some tables and chairs, all the hot water you need (you supply your tea and coffee), a mini-fridge and a microwave oven; for some reason, the building also has lots of doors (irrelevant comment, just had to say it). It's convenient to be able to bring your lunch and keep the tea flowing, but quite frankly I miss a student cantine here; there are however a bunch of commercial food places nearby. About the School I'll say it's a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere, lecturers are nice and very approachable and they know their subject. There's plenty of talks here and there by resident and invited lecturers, not only forestry related but other fields like conservation and things going on in North Wales, and since the school is relative small it's easy to hear about them and attend. Makes for nice alternative informative sessions. Sutrofors are taught with the Agroforestry postgraduate course, so altogether we're 10 students sharing the same classes (also international). There's two main courses running, you can check the details in the sutrofor page. Overall the focus is definitely on agroforestry and the subject is covered by multiple lecturers with different styles and approaches. Some have an agricutural background, others are foresters, some are into livelihoods and others dig systems views and/or local knowledge, some like the temperate areas and others love the tropics (overall there's more focus on the tropics), and everyone is pretty much a tree fan. The rhythm is quite variable but surely keeps you bussy. Oh yes, grading is based on reports and presentations. There's also a parallel class on research methods, which you share with pretty much all other masters students, so much bigger class (nice). It's a one-day-per-week class, which covers (very quickly) as the name would suggest all aspects of research. A bit redundant maybe for some of us in our second year, but good refresher and a few new things. Some days are in class, others in the field (one day was a voluntary trip to participate in rhododendron control in the mountains, cool even with rain). The class also covers GIS and remote sensing, a couple good classes and computer practicals on that, also based on some field collected data. Also worth mentioning that the school organizes additional field excursions which make for a enjoyable day out in the nearby mountains and farms. Ah yeah, and I almost forgot, classes here run until december (a few days before x-mas) and then you're off to focus on your thesis. You can attend more classes if you wish, that is the agroforestry courses (the masters taught postgraduate with the other students) keep running for a couple more months, but you're basically on to your thesis. Must be said, at the beginning there was some confusion as to when we were supposed to hand in our thesis, first it was said may, now its september, slight difference!, although we're welcome to finish early. I dunno how it will be next year, would be good to ask as this is an ongoing general discussion among all sutrofor institutions.


Regarding thesis subjects, it's notable that topics are pretty much unlimited as are locations. Now this can be good in terms of flexibility (not so helpful when you are undecided). You are not particularly obliged to do something within Agroforestry, although of course it's in your interest and AF is quite a broad subject anyway. Researchers in the school (SENRGY) have broad fields of interest. Asides from the whole agriculture-agroforestry-forestry spectrum, there are a lot of excellent lecturers involved with conservation or rivers-catchments or geospatial analysis for example, and one current AF classmate of mine is gona work with a supervisor (from another school) to look into rice genetics. If anyone wants to really get more specific, drop me an email and I'll send you the list of research opportunities from all faculty members (the one we got his year) for you to browse. It's also worth mentioning that location is also completely open, it can be North Wales, for which there is a lot of interesting research going on, e.g. the school has a silvopastoral experimental station in Henfaes, is involved with the Treborth botanical garden, and next building is the Environment Centre Wales on a partnership with the U.K.'s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. Of course, tropical foresters as we are, north Wales rain is tolerable but would be nicer to feel on a warm climate. Options to work in tropical countries are there. Big consideration of course, is the funding. Some researchers may have some available, but as you know that is highly variable. You are obviously encouraged to look for it and they are willing to help, but it comes down to your own initiative. It's worth mentioning the great links of Bangor with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and also with CATIE in Costa Rica. Specially with ICRAF, there have been lots of available options to work for/with them in projects around the world, and that means funding and collaboration. Of course, it depends on what projects are running at the moment (you adapt to the larger project, not the other way around), but it seems there's always something going on! I can tell you that the 3 of us here are most likely going to go this way =).

And very briefly now (feel free to ask me more details), there's lots of activities going on in the University. There's over a hundred societies running, be it sports (there's some very nice infrastructure for sports), academic, community, hobbies, performing, outdoors, social, etc. check them out in the student's union site to get an idea. And finally, about North Wales, it really is a beautiful place. The Snowdonia national park is just a step away and the mountains are amazing. There´s lots of quaint Welsh towns around, a beautiful coastline, and yes, lots of sheep to dot the otherwise grassy landscape. I love it.