GeoSciences special
In a special COP26 edition of the Multi Story Edinburgh podcast we decided to talk to graduates from the School of GeoSciences, one of the largest and most successful interdisciplinary grouping of geographers, Earth and environmental scientists in the UK.
Everybody wants to save the world?
How do our GeoScience graduates feel now that they are stepping out into the world? Do they feel responsible? Or is knowledge and understanding a kind of superpower?
As with every episode of the Multi Story Edinburgh podcast we wanted to better appreciate the diversity of the graduate experience. To understand motivations and experiences from a personal perspective. Each episode is different. Each individual has moved on from Edinburgh in their own unique way. Some of it is meticulously planned, some of it just happened.
What binds these episodes together is a desire to make a difference and a belief that making a difference is possible.
Joanna - MA Geography
Feeling wanted, the human side of geography and drawing on personal experiences
Here, back at home, I see a lot of space just being very poorly managed, I think, there is a lot of concrete and, and you know, trees being cut down. And one thing is the environment, but it's also very, like damaging for people to live in this kind of place. So it is very much interesting to me, but I also feel like emotionally affected by all of this.
Stella - MSc GeoEnergy
Working in the field, Masters as a mindset and knowing your worth
And then GeoEnergy, it's obviously something very future oriented. It has the potential to be used to improve the world, which sounds a bit cheesy. Ultimately, I guess, you know, we are in this really bad situation when it comes to climate change and change needs to happen. And I've always wanted to enable that in one way or another.
Molly - MEarthSci Geology and Physical Geography
The excitement of knowledge, working behind the scenes and field trip community.
I feel like me five years ago would be really proud of where I am now. I was doing something I did because I wanted to study it. And I hadn't, to be honest, really thought about what positions I was going to come out with at the end. I was going in excited and wanting to learn all this stuff and it was so cool.
Emma - BSc Ecological and Environmental Sciences
Demystifying academia, personal connections and the joy of clubbing.
We are definitely a generation that now has this whole idea of we can actually study something that can make a difference climatically at least, and environmentally, and we have an opportunity to maybe change the world, so to speak. But scientists have talked about all of these things for a long time. And it's just, I guess, the framing that is slightly changed, and all of a sudden, there's more people, at least my age that feel like okay, if I study this, I can actually go on and make that impact that I've wanted to see.
Sheela - MA Geography
Living your core values, postponing adult life and pushing out of comfort zones.
I was expecting uni to instantly be amazing. I was very lucky in that it didn't take very long but there's always that first period that actually, I think if I had people that I knew and could fall back on I probably would have just done that and then not experienced all the amazing things that I did for the next four years of meeting new people and really push myself to get out my comfort zone, because I've grown so much over my undergrad degree.
Season 2 - Class of 2021
In season two we chat to guests from the class of 2021 and talk candidly about their experiences of the last year and their hopes for the future.
You can listen to all the episodes by searching 'Multi Story Edinburgh' on your preferred podcast platform.
You can also stream the episodes online.