Student Insight Series

Welcome to the UTS Student Insight series. We are delighted to continue our series on World Science Day and hope to inspire you towards a career in science and math. I'm Kelly, and today I will be taking you through my journey to becoming a math and statistics student, and I will be taking all of your questions at the end. Before we get started, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation upon whose ancestral lands our city campus now stands. I would also like to pay respect to the elders, both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for this land. Just a little housekeeping before we get started. If you have any questions during today's webinar, please type them into the Q&A box in your Zoom control panel and I will do my best to answer the questions along the way. If you have a question someone else has asked and will like it answered, please use the upvoting tool, which is the little thumbs up next to the question. Being an online event do bear with us if there are any technical issues, we will work to resolve them quickly. If you are not able to access the talk at any point, please log out and log back in again, as that usually resolves such issues. This session will be recorded, but we will not be recording any video or audio input from the audience. You may contact us at science.future@uts.edu.au to discuss any concerns or questions you have.

Let us begin from my journey at UTS. I'm a student studying Bachelor of Science, majoring in mathematics and Statistics. 2021 is my final year for this degree and I wish to get into the field of research after I graduate so I can connect my mathematics and statistics knowledge with behavioral economics. I am also a SPROUT, so a student representative for the science faculty, and that's why I'm speaking with you all here today. A bit more about my high school life. For my subject selection in year 11, I did advance English, extension one mathematics, Or you call it three-unit math, economics, chemistry and Japanese beginners, apart from English that was compulsory to select everything else was chosen based on my interests. So I loved all of my subjects and HSC was not very intense for me. These subjects also allowed me to figure out my academic strengths and interests. They helped me a lot in university. Math has become my major, and both economics and chemistry have made up my sub-major. Or you call it elective subjects. Studying math at UTS isn't just numbers and equations. What I like the most about studying math at UTS is that the course offers a nice balance between applied math and pure math. I've given a few examples here. We have pure math subjects such as linear algebra, discrete mathematics, and differential equations.

Also, the practical ones such as introduction to optimization, regression and linear models, and Complex Analysis, which allows you to learn more applied math. Academics here teach us more about the application of math. Many real-life examples are given based on the theory explained. This is very beneficial for students, and I've learned a lot from the real-life scenarios. An example of how our subjects teach you the practical side of math. Here is a project that I did before a subject called Sample Survey. Our survey was based on smartphones and their aim is to reach out to respondents with different genders, upbringings and age. And we want to investigate how different factors change people's preference. Most of our survey would be distributed in the form of Google Form and will be emailed randomly to UTS staff and students. The advantage would be that all responses are random and unbiased. This advantage would be that firstly, Google Form does not have the interface for ranking questions. Hence it limits the type of questions asked, hence affects our results and also affect our analysis, so making the whole experiment slightly inaccurate. Secondly, it may flood people's email inbox that may result in missed important emails for the respondents. Also, our email might just go to the junk mail straight away, so a waste of effort. Our solution was first they use multigrid options not ideal since respondents can input the same rank for multiple variables.

So what is multiple grid option? On Google Form like, when you ask a question like do you like Maccas? And number one means yes, I like it a lot. Number two means I do like it, but not so much. Number three, maybe like I'm on the fence and so on, like four, five, six. That's called multi-route options. And our second solution for flooding of email inbox is to designate receivers for respondents to send completed surveys to. So we already know who will be answering this. This makes the survey not so much unbiased, so it becomes like a biased result. For us, we have another option. Some survey will also be distributed in person at various buildings throughout UTS. This advantage would be that its high consumption of time because people need to stand at different buildings physically hand out the survey. Also higher cost. It becomes a higher cost survey because paper costs money, time of the person, distributing cost money as well. That's labour. So only also only a small amount of survey can be distributed this way because the person can only stand there for a while. You can't be there like twenty-four seven. However, the advantage would be that responses are much faster compared to email because you kind of can nag the person to finish your survey on the spot like it's not good, but you can always force them right.

After we take the survey, we use IBM SPSS as our analytical tool. Of course, there are many other great tools that you can choose from, but we chose this one because that's, this is a well known coding system. So we conducted many different tests, and we also used visualizations such as histograms, pie charts and bar graphs to present the data and the analysis. This project is a great practice, especially if you wish to work with ABS, which is the Australian Bureau of Statistics or any statistic related job. Studying math gives you lots of flexibility for your submajor or elective. There are many different choices. Advertising principal, science electives, information technology or I.T., introductory economics and also marketing principle. For me, I chose economics as I want to blend my mathematic knowledge with macroeconomics. To be more specific, behavioral economics just like I mentioned in the beginning.

Ok. An example, to show the flexibility, let's all play a little game here. So this is to show that math is highly implemented in game shows. Hence it's conveying the idea that you can always blend math with something fun. Math is not just dry and not all about, like, pure math. So this is the Monty Hall problem, a very classic scenario that you will learn if you come across any study relevant to probability and random variables. Imagine you have a game, you're on a game show and the host shows you three doors behind one of the doors is the Star prize sports car.

Behind the other two doors are two goats. Now I will blind them. You have no idea which door contains which prize because behind the doors I will be shuffling them. Ok. You are asked to pick a door. Suppose you picked door one. But before it's opened, the host opens one of the other two doors. The host know where the car is, and he always opens the door with a goat behind it. Now, the host asks you if you wish to swap to another door. The question is, should you stay with your initial choice, door one or swap two door two or three? And think about it, does it make a difference if you swap? Does swapping give you a greater chance of winning or staying with your initial choice give you a greater chance of winning. I'll give you guys a few seconds to think about it and select which door you wish to open in the poll. I will now reveal the answer. So. Ok. Most people chose to swap, which means you guys think that there is a difference in swapping and you guys are correct. Ok. Why? Why is that right? Because you only have a probability of one third. So around thirty-three percent that you guessed the door right in the first go. So. You will think that you lose the car if you switch.

However, by Monty choosing one door and by you selecting one door without opening, this actually means that we suppose that the first time you choose, you chose the wrong door and Monty opens another wrong door. So hence you have a probability of two-thirds of sixty-six percent that you got it wrong and pick the door and you win if you're caught, if you switch to the car door. So if I say it out in a simple way that by Monty opens a door, he helps you to eliminate one of the wrong answers. Pretty interesting, right? I hope you guys liked that. This is to show that by using a Decision Tree, we can also solve the problem. Ok, so you can do this by hand, and I believe that you should learn this in year 11. And you can also solve it use by using MATLAB. So coding, of course, you can use Python. You can use C++. Anything. Ok, any coding instrument. We're not going to dig into these. These stuff is just to show how the same problem can be solved using different methods and different tools to show you that math is actually very flexible, either in like career choosing or researching, but also in solving questions itself so that you can use a billion different ways to solve one question. Ok, I exaggerated that, but like many ways. Ok.

Why I chose math. Firstly, passion, nothing moved forward without a bit of passion. I highly encourage everyone to choose a course based on their passion and interests. This will make your study life very, very enjoyable. Secondly, I was good at math back in high school, so I wanted to further develop my personal strength. Thirdly, I am very interested in how math is adapted in different fields. So I want to study math at a tertiary level. Lastly, with the fast development in technology, demand for mathematicians increase as math is a foundation for technology, this actually opens up a lot of career opportunities. Also, women are less inclined to study STEM subjects at university. As you can see here on my figure, the completion rate for women compared to men are much, much lower. Most of women currently either don't want to or don't see themselves as being in a STEM related career. So I wanted to make some contribution myself. As I just mentioned, mathematicians, statistic experts and data analysts are in high demand worldwide. We are able to work in a wide range of areas, including business, health, economics, engineering, market research, physical sciences and social sciences. All industry need math. Hence, is very flexible for you to choose what field you wish to work in. For me, I have planned out two pathways. One becoming a researcher, two to work in an investment bank, either for strategic planning or investment portfolio optimization.

On my slide, I have written a few career options. If you are interested, feel free to have a look on the link I provide. Many people ask me, what can you do with math? Well, now, you know, there are many career options, many job titles. But what does those jobs do? I want to give you all an example of how math is applied in real-life scenario and how close math is to all of you. Traffic lights are sometimes centrally controlled by computers to allow them to coordinate in real-time to deal with changing traffic patterns based on the data obtained from various traffic monitoring sensor networks. Simulation models are developed also site note we have a subject called simulation modelling that teaches you specifically how to do how to turn your model into like a coding, like into a code. Ok. So by running a simulation model, prediction of traffic evolution can be made, and intersections with highest risk of blockage can be seen. Here comes quantitative management. Quantitative management ensures that both person and freight will be at the right location at the right time by reducing the blockage and adjust the duration of traffic lights. If you're interested, you can always go check out this article called Traffic Light Management using optimization tool. It's a great article that I found myself that talks about the quantitative management and traffic lights very specifically, OK? Done by a very good researcher.

Ok, so quantitative management allows you to make models based on different scenarios. Here is a diagram of the procedure. With this, you are able to optimize anything. The procedure is firstly direction. What decisions need to be made? Secondly, problem, problem definition, what question to answer? What to measure? Thirdly, methodology, how to answer the question and how to measure. And lastly. research program, we get the fact from the data and the analysis, and then we answer the question that we have set earlier. So whether it is manufacturing, timetabling anything you wish to manage and analyze, you can use this procedure. So for manufacturing, for optimization, we can always like maximize the profit or minimize the cost. Ok. Again, have a research if you're interested in this. There's a huge industry behind quantitative management. Yes, and many jobs out there, and there also many research opportunities. Ok. All right.

A few pro tips from me. Ok, not saying I'm a pro. Firstly, a low ATAR does not mean the course is easy and that a popular course will have a high ATAR because each course can only take a certain number of students. You should never pick a high ATAR course, simply because you have achieved a high ATAR. For example, my ATAR was 92, but my course was only around 77 when I applied for it. A lot of people recommended me to choose something with a higher ATAR. Family, friends, classmates, teachers, literally everyone.

But I didn't listen to them because I wanted to do something I am passionate about, not what someone else is passionate about or what your parents or teacher think is good for you. Ok. Secondly, the more confident you are in high levels of mathematics in high school, the better your grades will be in science or math course at university. Just because math is a fundamental is not just numbers or equations. Math is a language, OK? It allows you to think from a different perspective. Finally, uni is fun. Everything is flexible. You get to decide everything the way you want. My advice would be enjoy the freedom, but also think twice before you make any decision. Here comes the Q&A session, please type your question into the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen, and I will answer them one by one. Okay. What is it like studying as a female in male dominated STEM? Ok, so I don't see there is any difference because for my submajor, I do economics, I go to business school, but that's more like a female dominated faculty. It's exactly the same. Like my classmates they're nice. I made a few great friends. They're all male and they helped me a lot during exam studying periods. And also like, we would make discussion like either on the discussion boards in Canvas or we would have our little group chat.

It's a very friendly environment. There's no like, "Oh, you're a girl, you're not smart enough". Nothing like that ever happened. Ok, next question do you need to get good marks in high school to study math at university? Well, I wouldn't say that it's compulsory to get good marks, but I would say put in a bit of a bit more effort in studying math because it is not an easy subject. Ok, I'll be very honest. It takes time and effort. I think that's with all study. So try your best. That's my advice. But at university, we have bridging courses. So if you feel you're not that confident in stepping into like tertiary level of mathematics, you can always do like a bridging course in the holiday or in the beginning of the semester to step you into a higher level of math. Ok. How did you find the adjustment from high school to university? Was it easy? Yes, it was very easy. And I enjoy the freedom. Like I said in my tips earlier, because lectures here, they treat you as friends, as adults or you are adults in university, so they would talk to you in a very friendly manner. No one push you for anything, and I find the environment is very easy to transition to. Workload, again, you need time and effort for study. Tell me, what is your favourite type of math? Well, I do love quantitative management. You guys should have known by now, so I put in like quite a few examples relating to it, just because I don't like to dry part of math, too. So I love the application of math that I've studied so far. So quantitative management allows you to actually know exactly how math applies to like certain industry and helps you to find a career path. I think it makes me feel like I'm in the workforce already by doing the subjects. Yeah, so it helps me a lot and I love it. It's just fun seeing how like cheese factory manufacturer or like how I manage a timetable for like a printer shop. It's very fun. Next. Would you recommend a science class or course for someone wanting to study science chemistry? Of course I do recommend if you love chemistry, well, I love chemistry as well. I was tossing between applied math and applied chemistry, but I chose math at the end just because of the flexibility. I would recommend you to choose chemistry in high school, of course, and do your best. And also like, I feel like you can always choose like our Bachelor of Science, majoring in chemistry in university like to study chemistry in the tertiary level. I definitely recommend because the earlier you study, you have a lot of background knowledge already that helps you a lot when you come to, like higher level of study. Is there good academic support for students studying math? Yes.

All of our academics are nice. So far I haven't met a nasty lecturer like all of them are nice and efficient. Ok. You shoot them an email. They reply to you within like two hours I would say. Like, there's no delay and they explain everything in a very clear manner, and they love you to ask a lot of questions. I never hesitate to reach out because they're more than happy to help. Last question, would you recommend the math class course for someone on your study? Yes, like I said, the more you study math and science subjects in high school, the easier you will transition into tertiary studies just because it gives you a nice base. And also, I feel like for high school study, they spoon feed you a lot with a lot of information. You may feel that it's a bit boring at some point, but it definitely gives you a very nice base. So, yeah, I recommend for sure. And that is all of our questions. All right. Thanks for tuning into my talk today. I hope it has provided some useful insights for you. A recording of today's talk, including the Q&A session, will be emailed to everyone who registered. And also available on the UTS science website soon. In the meantime, keep up to date with all things UTS Science by following us on our socials at UTS Science. Have a great day!

Good morning, everyone, thanks for tuning in to the Student Insight series. My name is Sam and I'll be taking you through my journey today with environmental and marine science. So, welcome to the UTS Student Insight series. We're delighted to continue this series on World Science Day and I hope to inspire you towards a career in science or maths. As I said, my name is Sam and I'll be taking you through my journey at UTS as a student studying marine and environmental science and then now studying a Masters of Science where I research. I'll be taking questions at the end of the presentation, and just before we get started, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation upon whose ancestral lands our city campus now stand. I'd also like to pay respect to the elders, both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for this land. Just a little bit of housekeeping before we get started. If you have any questions at all during the webinar today, then please type them into the Q&A box in your Zoom control panel and I'll do my best to try and answer any questions along the way. If you have a question that someone else has already asked and you would like it answered as well, then please use the upvoting tool, which is the little thumbs up symbol next to the question itself.

Also just being an online event, please do bear with us. If there are any technical issues, we'll work to resolve them quickly. If you find you are not able to access the talk at any point, then please try logging back out and logging back in. Sometimes this is able to resolve the issue. And just one more bit of housekeeping this session as well is being recorded, but we will not be recording any video or audio input from any of the audience. If you have any questions about the recording process, then please feel free to contact science.future@uts.edu.au. Ok, so just to give a little bit of background on how I, my pathway to getting into UTS, so I grew up and went to school on the central coast of New South Wales, and I moved to Sydney when I started university. I was lucky enough to grow up really close to the ocean and basically spent my entire childhood. Snorkelling and diving and surfing and just being involved in the ocean basically from early, as I can remember. So sort of from this really young age, I've always had a really strong passion for conservation and particularly marine conservation. So my pathway to UTS where I studied a degree of marine biology and also international studies. I kind of got there by studying the following subjects at school. So I did general maths, standard English, modern and ancient history, and also physics.

So I was I wasn't 100 percent sure what subjects I wanted to do at school. But then when I did get to year 12, I realized that kind of biology was where I wanted to, what I wanted to pursue when I went into university and particularly marine science, because I was really interested and always have been in the ocean. So, just a little bit about me and what I have done at UTS. So, I've been at UTS for a little while now, actually did a double degree when I came out of school, so my double degree was a Bachelor of Environmental Biology and then I also did a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies with a German major. So both completing both of these degrees then led me to do a postgraduate degree, which is a degree that you are able to complete after you have completed a bachelor's degree. So what I'm currently doing now is a Master's degree that's focused on research and marine ecology and conservation. So, one of the main reasons that I chose to go to UTS was actually going to the open day in 2013. It was coincidentally my 18th birthday as well when I went to the UTS open days, I was pretty excited already. But when I got onto the campus, it just really kind of spoke to me.

It was in such a great location, really close, really close to Central, so super accessible kind of wherever you're coming from. Also, just talking to some of the academics and the course directors that were present at Open day, they really kind of made it clear to me like the research impact and some of the things that you learn at UTS and how they might be sort of applied in the real world. Also, a big part of it was I did manage to talk to an academic who actually studied the same degree that I ended up doing at UTS, including the international studies section, which was a big drawcard for me, being able to do the science and then having the interdisciplinary approach of doing the international studies as well. Additionally, some of the available courses which I go into a little bit more detail in a moment were really, really cool, and you get to do some pretty awesome things when you study environmental and marine science. So as I mentioned, my degree was in environmental biology. Now the difference between environmental biology and marine biology isn't a whole lot. That's just a few subjects throughout the course of degrees where some might be focused a little bit more on terrestrial or land-based biology and ecology, where there might be a few other subjects in the marine stream that are focused on the ocean, maybe looking at fish or coral reefs or something like that.

So I originally selected the Environmental Biology Stream mostly because, as I mentioned, I've always had a really strong passion for ocean conservation. I'm very passionate about like animals and particularly fish. Some of the subjects that were available in this course, I thought, were really appealing and made me really get excited about wanting to learn about environmental biology and marine biology and also just being able to find out about the real-world applications of the subjects that were offered at UTS. So just to go through some of the, I guess, the highlights for me throughout the degree, and I think, you know, most people who are starting environmental or marine science degree probably are already pretty fond of being outside in the outdoors. So for me, the biggest or the most fun part of the degree was doing this field subject. So field subjects are where basically you get to go out into the bush or a research station, for example this image here in the middle with the research station up in the Great Barrier Reef, which you get to go to and you basically get to learn from academics and lecturers intruders when you're actually in the field at doing actual research and learning new techniques and stuff like that. So a bunch of different subjects that I've got listed down here in the bottom left, such as wildlife ecology, stream and like assessment, rain communities, marine primary productivity, and climate change they were all subjects which have really great field components, quite often to different areas around New South Wales or interstate.

So the subject Coral Reef Ecosystems, I think, is probably the was the highlight of the degree, the marine science degree for me. And basically, what that subject entails is you go up to the Great Barrier Reef for a week and there's an island there called Heron Island and you're basically on that island with about 30 or 40 other students just depends how many are in your year and it's an intensive course that runs for a week and you just get to learn about coral reef ecosystems, how to manage coral reef ecosystems. You learn about like fish identification and coral identification and all that sort of cool stuff. And it's really like intensive and you get to get a lot of hands-on experience from professional researchers who run the course. Another great subject is fish biology and fisheries. This one is particularly interesting to me because I am very interested in fish in particular. That's kind of my thing. So this was amazing to be able to a lot more about how fish and fisheries and conservation of different fish species actually works. So after completing all these subjects and finishing this degree, I graduated in 2018 with a double degree in environmental biology and also in international studies.

So after I had graduated, then I was trying to decide what I wanted to do and after having done that subject, which I mentioned up on the Great Barrier Reef, I got talking to some of the researchers, one of the professors who was running the course, and he is now my supervisor for my master's project now. So as I mentioned, master's or an honours or a PhD is something you can do after you've completed your bachelor's degree and I'm now close to completing that, where I focus on doing research in marine ecology. And the main reason I kind of wanted to do this was I thought that it would open up some opportunities if I wanted to pursue further research opportunities or maybe just open up some new, some new job opportunities. So just to give a little bit of background on what I am now doing that I've finished my bachelor's degree and now that I'm doing research. So my research focuses on the habitat associations and the ecology of these fish over here on the right. So these are called weedy seadragons. They're pretty cool fish are they're unique. They're only found in Australia, so they're endemic to the southern waters of Australia. And as I, as I mentioned, when I got talking to my now supervisor, the professor at uni, he was able to tell me that there was a project available to start studying these pretty cool fish.

And I thought having always been so passionate about the ocean, I thought it was a great opportunity to help the conservation efforts of such an iconic and charismatic Australian marine species. So throughout my research degree, I've had some really great opportunities through UTS, which has been really amazing. Firstly, a big one when you're doing any sort of research is collaboration, so it's really, really important that you were able to work with other people, maybe at different locations as well. So I've been able to collaborate with some really great other researchers at UTS, but also at some government institutions, things like that as well. So I've been able to not only work on my project studying weedy seadragons, but I've worked on projects helping restock endangered seahorse populations in Sydney Harbour. And we also monitor tropical vagrant fish that come down from the Great Barrier Reef and are now inhabiting these newly established coral beds off certain parts of Sydney. That's a photo on the bottom left there of some of the team out on a day sampling when we were looking for tropical fish that day. And then up in the middle, it's just a dive when we were working on the seahorses and we were just doing a bit of rubbish cleanup. Um. Another great opportunity with research degrees is international conferences, so, unfortunately, throughout most of my research candidature, I have been having to deal with COVID and lockdowns and all that, so I didn't get to go to international conferences in person, but they adapted them really well so that they were on Zoom like many things and I got to present at conferences that were based in China, which was really, really awesome to get to interact with international, internationally renowned researchers from China, Canada, the United States, Europe pretty much all over the world, as well as plenty more through Australia and plenty of researchers from UTS as well.

Also, I got to present at conferences within Australia, which was really great because Australia has really great marine science, sort of just all around. So it was really awesome to be able to see some of the other research that's going around in Australia in the same field that I'm in at the moment. Another great opportunity with research degrees is academic tutoring. So I mentioned just before some of the subjects, some of the subjects that I did as an undergrad at UTS while doing my marine science degree and going into my master's, I was lucky enough to be able to go back and actually teach some of those degrees. So after having learned so much from all the academics who helped me along the way, I thought it was really cool to be able to go back and help to teach.

I was lucky enough in my, to teach that third year subject, which actually went up to the reef, so I got to go. I got to there as a student and then I think it's maybe two years later, I got to go back as a teacher, spend another week on the reef, which is awesome, but also got to help teach our students about coral reef conservation, coral reef biology and just basically about coral reef ecosystems as a whole. So that was that was a really kind of unique opportunity, I thought, which I was afforded by studying at UTS. So a couple, a couple of tips for anyone who is interested in starting out as you know, interest in getting into a marine science or environmental science degree. If you do get in don't be afraid to ask questions. All the academics and tutors are there to help you, like having been a student and then a teacher, I know that a lot of students will sit there and everyone has the same question they might just be too afraid to ask it. Don't be everyone. Everyone is more than happy to assist you in any questions you might have, and it's the best way to help you succeed. Try and pursue like, find what you're interested in really, really go after that. There's a lot of different research happening at UTS and a lot of different subjects which are taught, and you're really able to kind of hone in on the specific things that you might be interested in and want to actually pursue.

Make use of the UTS facilities. There's some really great things like the Super Lab. I had a photo of that earlier. And there's all these great new UTS facilities. We've got like three new buildings, four new buildings and then plus all the new labs and everything. It's really good and one that's a little bit more specific to anyone who is really interested in marine science. I can't recommend enough upskilling in scuba diving. I started scuba diving throughout my bachelor's because I was kind of getting the idea that I might want to start trying to work in marine science, and it is a very, very useful skill. A lot of obviously, depending on what you're doing. But a lot of employers in the marine conservation sector are looking for people who can dive so I highly recommend if you're interested in marine science and you think you might want to end up pursuing it. You can't start diving too early. Ok, thank you for listening, guys, and just a reminder of how to ask any questions, please type your questions into the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen and I will try and get to them all now and answer any questions that you guys might have.

So there's a couple of questions. First one is what kind of work do you do while on a field trip. So, great question. A little bit different depending on what sort of subject you do so. As I mentioned at the start, there's a bunch of subjects which are more focused on marine science and then some which are more focused on terrestrial or land based science. So for example, in a land based subject Wildlife Ecology, you learn about different sampling techniques for monitoring plant communities. You also learn how to trap animals and things like that, which is particularly something you would do if you were maybe getting into something like environmental consulting as a job. Later on, you would need these skills that you learn whilst on these field trips. And then if you're doing marine things then you do get to spend a bit of time in the water with some of those later subjects like the Coral Reef one that I mentioned. So you learn how to do things like fish censuses in the water. You learn how to identify fish or corals or seaweeds or other benthic invertebrates, anything that might be appropriate to what the subject outline is. Next question I have is, do you need to be really smart to do a research project? I mean, not necessarily, I think, rather than smart I think the important thing is finding something that you're passionate about, like if you can find a topic that you really, really are passionate about, then I don't think it's going to matter as much as long as you are willing to put in the hard work to deliver the outcomes that you need to, then yeah, I think you'll be fine.

How important, next question, sorry, is how important is environmental impact to your research? So that's a good question. Can have different impacts on everyone's research, but for me, specifically, the biggest impact of all environmental impacts would probably be, you know, climate change and ocean warming and things like that. So a big part of my research is looking at the distribution of weedy seadragons and how that might change from climate change. So, yeah, it definitely has has a big impact on my research, for sure. And this is a really good question. Are there jobs besides research in marine biology? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I don't think I touched on too many of them, but there's a lot of jobs such as you could work at a zoo, you could work in an aquarium, a really big one, is environmental consulting. You can get into research. You can work in marine science tourism, which is a really kind of booming industry at the moment, particularly in Queensland and anywhere on the Great Barrier Reef or something like that. Also around Sydney, there's a lot of opportunities to work as like a technician as well for any sort of institution.

Another question here, how long does it take for you to start diving properly? I guess it depends what you mean by properly, but you can do your dive course and be like diving within the first-day sort of thing. But if you want to do, when employers are looking for someone who can dive, there's a few more courses that you need to do along the way. So it takes a while to get there. There's probably like three or four courses to take a couple of days at a time, and you need a certain amount of dives to get to each one. So that's just why I recommend if you are interested in it, there's no harm in starting early because it's a lifetime qualification. So if you're in like year 10 or something now and you want to start diving and then you still have that qualification when you might be approaching looking for a job after you've finished your uni degree. Do you need HSC biology for an environmental major? I think it's recommended, yes, but I didn't have HSC biology. Um, maybe it would have been easier, I'm not sure, but I think, as I said before, if you're really passionate about it and you're happy to put in the hard work to learn the basic principles of biology and all that sort of stuff, then you can definitely get by and you do get taught all of the things that you need to know. The academics are really helpful. The tutors are really helpful. They'll put in the work to make sure as long as you're putting in the work on your end, they'll help to make sure that you've got everything you need to know. Another question here is, do you do much group work or is it mainly independent study? It's a bit of both. A, I don't know if I'd quite say 50/50, probably, but that there is definitely a good mix of doing both and I think, um, group work is a really, really important part of being at uni, having been on both sides of group work, helping people organize projects as a teacher and then having to organize projects as a student as well. I think it teaches you really important skills of how to collaborate with other students, how to work with other people and other things like that. So I think it's a bit of a mix of both. The independent study is really helpful for helping you be self-motivated and making sure that you can get the work done when you need to. What kind of subjects are there environmental, are in the environmental biology major? Anything related to plants? Yes, lots and lots related to plants. I did kind of focus on the marine side of stuff here because my thing is fish. But yeah, probably one of the really cool things about when you do the degree is everyone who is doing an environmental marine science degree is really passionate about the environment and everyone kind of has their own little niche, so there's definitely plant people, there's fish people, there's bird people, there's animal people and talking to all those people, you get to learn a bunch of different stuff they might, they're going to maybe know more about you than certain plants and you might know more about bats and birds or something. But there's subjects like biodiversity conservation is a good one where you learn a lot about plants. There's another one called ecology, which has a very plant heavy focus. And there is definitely more. But like I said, I can't, I'm just trying to remember them because I tend to focus on the marine ones, but yeah, there is a lot of really cool plant research that goes on at UTS. So if you're interested in that, there is plenty to do. Question here, how did you find the move to Sydney in your first year? So my first year, I actually commuted from the central coast, which was pretty rough, but I then moved to Sydney at the beginning of my second year and I loved it. I thought it was a great decision. It was a bit of an adjustment at first, having come from just a quiet town, but I think it was, I'm very glad I did it.Now, looking back, it was pretty good.

One more the question I've got here is any advice for students worried about first year? It's a tricky one like uni can be daunting, but just don't be don't be too scared of it, just embrace it. As I said before, if you're doing any subjects don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to talk to other people. Everyone coming into first year is in the same boat, they want to get to know people. They want to have a great time at uni. They want to learn everything. That's the good thing about getting into uni's, like anyone that you're meeting in the degree is as passionate as you are. They're getting that degree. So it's really, really cool to be able to meet new people and, you know, you can try and get through first year together. That's just about all the questions that we've got there guys. So. Thanks for joining us. Our recording of this talk will be sent to everyone who registered for the event and also made available on our website. And if you want any more information on the environmental and marine science courses, you can see the course info at science.uts.edu.au/future. And follow us on socials at UTS Science.

Thanks for listening.

Welcome to the UTS Insight Series, a free public lecture series showcasing UTS science and math students and alumni. I'm Charlotte, and I will be sharing my insights and experiences today and answering any questions you have at the end of the talk. We have just a little housekeeping before we get started, with this being an online event, do bear with us, if there are any technical issues, we will work to resolve them quickly. If you find you are not able to access the talk at any point, please log out and back in again as this usually resolves such issues. I would like to first acknowledge the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation upon whose ancestral lands our city campus now stands. I would also like to pay respect to the elders past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for this land. If you have any questions during today's webinar, please type them into the Q&A box in your Zoom control panel and I will do my best to answer the questions at the end. If you like a question someone else is asked and would like it answered, please use the up voting tool just a little thumbs up symbol next to the question itself. This session will be recorded, but we will not be recording any video or audio input from the audience. You make contact UTS at science.futures@uts.edu.au to discuss any questions or concerns you have. So my name is Charlotte.

I'm a third year Bachelor of Advanced Science Major in Infection and Immunity and Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation Student. I'm part of the School of Life Sciences and I'm in my last year. I joined UTS in 2019 after coming from high school, so I thought I'd begin by talking about what high school subjects I did and how I got to my journey today at UTS. So in high school, I was always really passionate about science, so I always knew I wanted to do something with science, but I wasn't really sure exactly what. So as you could see on the screen my year 11 Subjects were quite broad. I did maths extension to how to keep my options open in physics and applied science as well, and also advanced English, chemistry, biology, and then I also took some other subjects for a little bit of fun, like legal studies, studies of religion 1, business services, and ancient history. This allowed me to kind of have a little bit of a break from my sciences and explore some of my other interests. By year 12, I began to realize what I actually enjoyed. I realized that I really liked the biology side, but particularly I liked the human biology. Whilst I found the general biology kind of interesting, I wasn't super interested in plants or ecology. For me, I love the study of disease and the study of genetics, and I really thought that would be something I wanted to go into. I dropped to advanced maths, and that's when I realised my passion laid more in biological sciences than physical sciences. And I also dropped to English because I just didn't enjoy it and it wasn't, wasn't worth my time. I really started to focus on my chemistry and biology and trying to expand these a little bit. High school chemistry I love the practical side, but I wasn't so keen on the history and theoretical side. This is what I really loved about uni, learning more about the practical and mathematical sides of chemistry. Legal studies was actually one of my favorite subjects and one of the subjects I did best in because it was a little bit of a break from my science, which is all very heavy but really enjoyable. Legal studies was that little bit of fun and just something extra to do. Finally, I did studies of religion 1 as I went to a Catholic school. High school for me, I was a super involved student and it was really a chance to get to know my interests and passions and align me towards university. One of the main things I did in high school that I would definitely recommend is come to open days. There is so much value in open days, even as a year 9 or 10 student if you have no idea what to do. Just rocking up on campus and going to all the different faculties and even within the one faculty, all the different schools and all the different degrees, it's a really great way to see what's out there.

In school, school is pretty much three or four sciences, biology, chemistry, physics and maybe environmental science. You don't really get the opportunity to see all the niches and all the kind of different degrees you may not have heard before. Open day for me completely open my eyes to see how many different degrees there were and all the different things I could do with a science degree. Not just typical of what I'd thought of. But from there what I really loved is experience uni in a day. This is where I came to UTS for a day and I actually got to experience being a university student. I got to choose a couple of subjects to sort of enrol in for the day and do a two hour simulated class. This is a really good opportunity to see what it would actually be like to be a university student, to actually experience campus and see what it's like because it's quite a different experience to high school. In high school, I did still do some programs, like I was part of my school STEM club and also part of Young Scientists Australia who run holiday science camps. I began as a participant in year 9 and 10, and year 11 and 12 I became a facilitator, running these camps for junior students, which really helped me. I got to meet other facilitators as well, because it's for people aged 14 to 25 that meant I met a bunch of people who between the ages of 20 and 25 and who were already doing science degrees or working in science fields and kind of opened my eyes to what I'd like to do. I would also suggest applying for programs like the National Youth Science Forum or other programs that university offers, especially UTS. But I didn't just limit myself to science activities. I was also involved in debating and public speaking and leadership. And both of these have been so useful within my science degree and my broader life. Being able to be a debater and public speaker is super helpful for presenting knowledge and skills, I've learned, as well as presenting any papers I wrote.  I also was an active part of a surf life saving club and the Air Force cadets, which are great ways to be involved in my community and expand my knowledge and connections.

So why did I pick UTS? So up until year 12, I pretty much had no idea what I wanted to do. I was very kind of unsure and I was kind of not really sure what I was doing in my life. However, my kind of whole career goal sort of changed in year 12, so I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to do medicine, but I didn't want to do it undergrad. Mainly, I didn't think I would achieve high enough, but I also wanted to do something that didn't just limit me to doing medicine.

I actually wanted to do something that I would be really happy and fulfilled with my career if I didn't decide to go that way. So UTS was kind of a chance happening. I was wandering nearby at some nearby opening day and I happened to come across UTS and the campus looked really nice, and I said to Mum, "why don't we just go in and see what's happening?" So we went in and we went into the table and they had this room where they had all the course directors sitting at a table and you could go over and chat to them and you could talk about the course and the options they had, and they just gave you a chat. I sat down with a couple of the course directors and I thought all sounded really interesting. But then I sat with Gary Myers, who was the course director of the Infection and Immunity major. I think I sat there for about an hour and a half. From that moment on, I was like, "this is the degree for me, like, a hundred percent want to do this", within about 10 minutes, I was like, "this, this is it, it's perfect". Learning about disease like it's my favorite biology topic, and I just love the idea of UTS. But something that really made me love UTS is the facilities. So if you've all been like online this year, you may not have been able to come to Open day, but these are the facilities.

So this picture in the top left is of the Super Lab, and they actually held a simulated class down there on open day, like a Q&A session. You could actually see the way it works with about 200 seats in the Super Lab, they could have five or six classes happening at once. We all wear a set of headphones within your zone and it allows them to talk to just your zone, and it means you get access to these amazing equipment that maybe they couldn't have in seven different labs, but they've got this one big place that could be shared among the classes. But obviously, you might only use it for one lecture. I remember saying to my Mum, "Look, I want to come here because I want to ask a question on these microphones", like, that was, that was my goal. So that kind of really started me thinking about UTS. The other facilities you can see include the crime scene simulation lab for the forensic science degree, the surgical lab, where we actually got to work with cadavers in our first year. The science building where the Super Lab belongs in the underground, and this new one at the top right is the Hive Super Lab, which is this brand new building, which is super exciting to go into. And it pretty much is similar to the Super Lab, but it's set up in these coloured zones and we actually have bone conduction headphones and we use Surface Pro tablets.

This kind of facility is so incredible, and it's more than just like a novelty like it actually is really functional and works really well. So that was kind of what led me to UTS. But more than that, it was actually the Advanced Science degree. So I kind of I wanted to do a degree that was kind of like led me into a career, led me into understanding my goals better, and like for me, I didn't really choose advanced science because it was harder because of the higher ATAR. That wasn't really why I chose it. I actually chose it because the UTS advanced science degree differed from some other science degrees in that it didn't just make you do advanced chemistry or advanced biology. What it was is it's research immersive. So involved in my degree, I had like two research projects where I actually had to go and do an internship as part of my degree. But rather than sort of just interning in a lab, I actually had to do my own project. I'm going to talk about that in a little bit, but that was kind of I was like, this is a really cool degree, like it's research immersive, it's front of the field, and that's kind of what led me to UTS. So let me talk a bit about my subjects I've done at UTS, so I'm just focusing on my science degree here.

So these are my science subjects, the ones I've bolded aren't necessarily my favourite, but they're ones I'm going to talk a little bit about an interesting experience I've had. So as I said before, chemistry in high school, I did the old HSC syllabus and I loved the practicals, I loved the titrations, the calculations and the equations. But I wasn't really interested in learning about the history of methanol, like that just wasn't didn't interest me a whole lot. Chemistry in university, I found really focused on that sort of, I think it's the newest syllabus style of equations and actually doing practicals and understanding how to balance reactions. And that was so interesting to me, and compared to high school, where you may only get a 50 minute period to carry out a whole experiment, university practicals are three hours long. Now, first, that sounds kind of like "uh, three hours", but honestly, like it is the ideal length because it means you can actually carry out the entire practical in that time. So I've definitely loved that element of it. And then some of the other subjects I did in the first semester were pretty much chemistry, biology, physics and maths. So it really just gave me a broad insight into university, helped me realize what if I chose the right major because it is quite easy to change in that first year because it's quite similar to other degrees. So if I decided that I wasn't enjoying the Infection and Immunity, I could have changed. The second semester is where it really got a bit more interesting.

One of my favorite subjects is human anatomy and physiology, because I'm actually not one I quite like sort of not really gored out or anything, and I actually got to go into the cadaver lab where we work with human bodies that have been donated to science, to observe the anatomy and to understand the anatomy, which was to me so incredible in that we were so lucky that these people had donated their bodies to science and that we had the opportunity to actually see how a real human body works. And then in the practicals, we got to use animal organs to actually do dissections. That was a really great opportunity to actually see the inside, and to put into practice what I'd learnt. Now, second year was the year that was online because of COVID. But one of the really interesting subjects I did was actually infection and immunity research. So this is one of those research subjects that I was talking about before, and this is a twelve credit point research subject, which is double if you do six normally. And what it was was they actually got people from the i3 Institute, which is the infection institute to come, and they pretty much all ran a lecture series and then they did practicals that were related to their sort of field. So some of them did antibiotic resistance, some of them did bacteria, some of them did archaea.

And it was a way to learn about all these things that incorporate infection all in one. So that was really exciting. And as part of that, we actually did an online research project where we worked in a team of three people. And again, I'll talk about my project a little bit later, to actually work with a lecturer, which is really, really exciting. Now I wish I got to do the pracs in person. However, I don't feel like I missed the skill because the way they ran them online was really great. They did some videos for us, which was really awesome. Pharmacology I found really interesting because another career I'd considered was pharmacy, and so I found it really exciting to learn about pharmacy, to learn about drugs and like, you know, even learning about simple drugs that you hear about all the time like we did a whole topic on antidepressants, we did a topic on heart drugs, we did a topic on like blood pressure drugs, things like that that you hear about and you know, people who take and actually learning the mechanism of action and how they work. Like I remember coming home and telling my dad, my dad's on a whole bunch of medications, and I was like, "Oh,  dad and I learned how this medication works!". And like, it's just so exciting to learn the science behind it.

Then epidemiology and public health microbiology. Now, this subject was actually sort of a follow on from general microbiology, and the way it worked is we did practicals where it was like three days long, so it was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you would get like a piece of ham on the Wednesday, and you had to put it in a stomachiser and then test it for food allergens or food poisoning bacteria and check it on Friday. Now, this was quite a good way to see how online learning works. This is like in-person. The science faculty was one of the first ones to come back, and I didn't know how to use a microscope because we were meant to have learned that in general microbiology and know how to do a gram stain. But I kind of rocked up to the first prac and I was like, "Hmm, watched a video on this. Not really sure what to do", but by telling my tutor, she ended up teaching the entire class, she did a simulation, she went slower, and it seems like then that I realized that they wanted to help us, like obviously online learning is not ideal, but you're not going to be behind. They're going to help you catch up and learn it. Immunology is where I really realized what I'm passionate about and that I want to do immunology, and it's where I actually did my major research project and it's the field I want to go into for honours and beyond.

The professional experience in biomedical science program I'll go into again in the future. But it was a program in a hospital where actually did work experience for eight weeks. The Advanced research project again, as I discussed before. And then this semester, I'm loving all my subjects, but I'm especially loving genetics where I'm learning more about like how genes are passed on and bacteria pathogenesis which is really focusing on bioinformatic skills and pretty much focusing on COVID, like we are learning about researchers who work on COVID, we're learning about how they analyze it, where strains have come from, like connecting a strain from Melbourne to a Sydney outbreak, which is really exciting. So the practical experience I mentioned, so I've done three sort of practical experiences. The first one is the one in the middle, which was an online research project with Dr Bill Soderstrom, and it was visualizing the infection cycle of urinary tract infections using high resolution microscopy. So, what this essentially was, was designing a biological workflow to actually see UTI's under a microscope. We were looking at the bacteria and how they transform between rods and filaments, and that kind of helps the bacteria to sort of thrive and cause infection. They can lay dormant and a whole bunch of stuff. And it was a topic that was probably wouldn't have ever have chose or anything, and I found it so interesting to learn about something so completely different. My PEBS program I got put in the anatomical pathology lab at Concord.

Now this was kind of a chance because we were originally able to preference places and I live in the East, so I probably wouldn't have chose something at Concord Hospital, and I didn't really know what anatomical pathology was either, so I probably wouldn't have chose that. But it was because of COVID and a few restrictions they ended up choosing for us, and it was actually one of the best things to happen because I kind of rocked up not having done the prerequisites for that sort of field. However, straightaway they gave me notes to read, I picked up on it and eight weeks it was so interesting so that anyone who doesn't know anatomical pathology is like the diagnosis of disease and stuff using tissues. So if you get a biopsy or if they remove, say, your gallbladder and they want to check it, that would go to an anatomical pathology lab. So it ranged from tiny,  little microscopic samples all the way to like having a whole stomach or a whole colon taken out. I got to see, like amputated legs, things like that, and I actually got to see like the inner workings and how they cut up a piece of an organ really small and they put out a slide and they use a microtome. And that was the photo that they used of me for this presentation using the microtome, and that was really cool to learn about it.

And finally, my most recent research project was investigating the effects of modulating TTP responses in experimental COPD with Dr Richard Kim at the Centenary and UTS Centre for Inflammation. So I actually got to run a 12 week project. I did like a sort of 12 credit point, it was about 10 week project and I actually ran two mouse models, which is looking at the effects of smoking on COPD and using drugs to kind of stop that. So I ran these two two week models and I actually got to learn how to take samples from the mice, how to analyse tissues and a whole bunch of other skills and made me realise that immunology is what I'm really passionate about. So this is a really exciting project, and was down to my degree that I managed to get this project. But one of the big things is just asking for opportunities. So you have to do the project, but they're not given to you. Instead, you reach out to a lecturer. So I personally really liked Dr Richard Kim during his subject, Immunology, that he taught. And he mentioned that if any students were ever interested in internships, give him a message. So I literally just reached out and said, "Hey, I'm super interested in your work. I need a research project" and it simply goes from there. You meet with them, you send them your transcripts. Things like that. And it's just asking for those opportunities. If there is someone you're interested in, like, lecturers are always wanting to take on a mentor, a new student, and they often say in their lessons like, "I've got spaces in my team, just reaching out". Look, even if they are busy and they've already got students, they may have someone else they can refer you to. So just be asking for experiences. And even in high school, I did a few web experience programs and it's just asking. It's just sending emails, like just putting feelers out there, asking, looking what's available. You may not get every opportunity you apply for, but you may get a couple of great ones.

So the other thing I've done at university is a bunch of activities. So I was meant to be on global exchange in Sweden. Now, unfortunately, due to COVID didn't really happen, but hopefully by the time you guys come to university, that'll be back in action. And UTS has a really great global exchange program. I'm also on the academic and faculty boards, and here I am in the picture of my academic board. So it's kind of like the SRC of university. I'm also part of the HELPS program for international students or students who are struggling with their language skills. And I'm one of the peer advisors who actually helps students. So one of the great things about university is you can also get volunteer and paid employment, such as my peer advisor job that helps you expand your skills and do a little job for university as well. And I'm also part of societies, such as like MedSoc, I was part of FoodSoc in first year. It's a good food appreciation society and it was like five dollars a year and you got a bunch of free food. So uni has so many great opportunities. So let's get to some questions. Please type your question the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen. We'll endeavour to answer your question now, and I'll just start by reading some of them out that we've got already and feel free to stick them in the chat. Ok. Cool.

Someone asked about the internship, which I was just chatting about. "Can you get help from the University of finding an internship?". Yes, definitely. The university is helpful, so we have what's called CareerHub, and the UTS career service is really, really awesome. Pretty much they will help you. They have like a portal where they put on paid employment, like just casual jobs. They put on internships, they put on volunteer opportunities, any sort of companies that reach out to them. And that can definitely help you to get an internship. You can reach out to the career service and ask for some help. But honestly, the lecturers are the ones who are willing to give you the internships and just being an active student in class, asking questions, engaging. It's about like getting known. So going to classes like asking questions like, I feel like there's this kind of this idea that lecturers are very different to teachers, they're not approachable and I know in first year I didn't send a single email to any lecturer because I was like, "Oh, no, like, you can't do that". And now I email them, and literally some of them will reply back, like, Dr or Professor Gary Myers literally replied back, like "Cheers, G". Like something like that. And they're so, they're so approachable. It's so friendly that they definitely so willing to help. So if you send an email to your course director, it's like one of my friends, her internship unfortunately couldn't happen this semester because of being moved online, it wasn't a possible online internship. But she sent our course, director an email, and he replied back "super easy, yeah, what about this guy? Like he's got online projects" So they're definitely able to help you out. Do you get to go to the Super Labs in first year? Yes, you do. Like my very first class of the year was in the Super Lab. It was a cell biology and genetic I think it was called and you literally got to go into the super lab and it was a three hour practical and we did a whole bunch of practical skills. We learned how to use a bunch of machines, run PCR tests, things like that. So definitely the old Super Lab, like the big one, is mainly First-Year classes. And then the Hive was for second and third year. So as a first year, you will most definitely be in the Super Lab unless anything changes with COVID.

Can I describe what my classes are like theory or prac? Yeah. Awesome. So there's a mix. So when you enrol in a subject, there's always a couple of different things you have to enrol in. So for me, like, say, chemistry, there was one lecture a week and there was one practical. So there was probably two or three lecture slots because five hundred people did chemistry, so you would choose the best time. And you go along to the lecture and they present content, slides are all online. Often it's recorded. Lectures are currently online because of COVID but it still kind of works. And then you also have the practical, which will often build on the lecture knowledge, or maybe a little bit extra. Now then you'll also sometimes have a tutorial. Now, tutorials aren't as common in science, as say they may be in business or law because we have practicals, but for some of my subjects, we will have like a tutorial and it's kind of, I would say it's more like a high school class, in that we kind of sit down and you're in a smaller group, maybe like thirty people and you might sit around tables and have 20 minutes to answer some questions and then they'll go through them as a class. So it's definitely a mix. So often in science, like I'll have a mix of assessments as well. So a typical assessment schedule for me may look like some sort of assignment during like the middle of the term, it may be a literature review, so I had to write a whole one on vaccines last semester. Right now, I'm writing a letter to a friend who doesn't want to get vaccinated. That's my assignment. And that's really exciting learning all this stuff and these arguments. And then you'll have maybe a practical exam and then maybe a theory exam as well, which usually happens. But it does depend on the subject. So, obviously, something like physics might be a little bit more theoretical than something like anatomy. So I think you're getting a double degree. Yeah. So my double degree is quite interesting. So the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation can't actually be done on its own. So it's this UTS specific, really incredible degree where you actually do it in holidays, in two week increments. So I go back in July for two weeks full time and December for two weeks, and it's transdisciplinary. So what it does is it teaches you how to work in a team with other people from different faculties. So I'll get put in a team of people from business, law, like engineering and we have to solve a real world problem for a person. So I think it's definitely going to help me. It's just made my skills, like I chose it because creativity always kind of terrified me and it just made me like, think in such a different way, which is, I think, just really helped my career like in that sense. And it's just the skills and experience I've got. So it's just the way I've developed as a person I would say from that. And was the double degree stressful? Yes. Like, look, mine is kind of a unique degree that I do it in the holidays, so I still do the four science subjects. If you do a typical double degree, you would do two science subjects and two, what it called, you do to science like two of the other degree or switch it around? So mine is a little bit unique in that sense. But, I haven't found it too stressful, I quite enjoy it because I get to do the science with all my friends, I'm still on time with them. And then in the holidays, I do my extra course. So I've definitely enjoyed it. Was I involved in any clubs or society? So I mentioned this a little bit before, but yeah, I was involved. I've done a few things from the MedSoc. I've also done what else? I've done a bit of FoodSoc. I've got some of my friends events like some of my friends in like engineering society. I like I'm the executive, so I popped along for some events. I've gone to some of the TD Society, which is the BCII, which is my other degree, I know I'm using a lot of acronyms here. It's the transdisciplinary school. I've gone to some of their events. Yeah, so I've definitely got involved. I haven't got involved maybe as much as I would have liked because a lot of second year was online and I kind of didn't really want to sign up for too much in December of first year for the next year because I thought I was going to be in Sweden and then obviously Sweden didn't happen, which is why then I got involved this year a lot more. So I kind of wish I'd done a bit more in my second year, but I was not wanting to commit to stuff. I didn't want to go on and exec or anything. I was going to Sweden, but then obviously we couldn't predict the, well, pandemic. And look, it worked really well in that I have got to learn so much from my degree about the pandemic. Look, I know so many things. I read so many articles like it's just so topical, and I as much as I hate that a pandemic happened, I was just saying, this is my mum this morning, like, you know, pre-pandemic the slides they're using, they still have the old slide where it's like, "Oh, will we ever have a pandemic?" And they've got their updated slide saying yes. But you know, pre-pandemic, the assignment might have been about writing on a vaccine for malaria or HIV, which are both incredibly important, but they wouldn't have that personal sort of want or desire. Whereas writing about a vaccine for COVID, it's kind of like, wow, like this is so relevant, it's just so engaging, so interesting. And that's what science is meant to be like. Forefront, innovative and being able to learn about like that stuff is so incredible and even being able to just like, explain to people like things like facts and stuff, and dispel some like sort of rumors is really, really cool.

What did I think of the pharmacology class? Yeah, I loved the pharmacology class actually. I ended up doing Pharmacology 2. So as my choice in my second term, I could do proteomics or pharmacology 2, and I do pharmacology 2. As I said before, like, I just found it super interesting and I've still considered pharmacy if I do like Allied Health as a post-grad or whatever. I just think it was really cool to learn about drugs just like the way they work, the mechanism of action, just like little things that like even some of the ones like I've taken myself and I'm like, "Oh, wow, that's how it works!". It's just like, so relevant. I definitely think this is like such an amazing sort of field to know about. So that's the end of the questions, did anyone have anything else before we end? Ok, well, if that's everything. Thank you for joining us. A recording of this talk will be sent to everyone who registered for the event and also be made available on our website.

Have a great day.

Hi, everyone, welcome to the UTS Student Insight series. I'm Dejana, and today I'll be sharing my experiences with you and answering any questions at the end. So before we begin, I'd like to do an acknowledgement of country. I'd like to acknowledge the people of the Eora nation upon whose ancestral lands I'm located in. I would also like to pay respect to the elders, both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional owners of the land. Just a little bit of housekeeping before we start. As this is a virtual event, if we do have any technical issues, please bear with us. We'll try to resolve them as quickly as possible. And if you do have any issues along the way of hearing or accessing the talk or something stops, just try to log in and out. And this usually resolves issues. So throughout my talk, please feel free to pop in any questions into the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen and I'll try and answer all of the questions towards, at the end of the talk today. And if you like any questions that have already been put up, you can also just click the upvote for a question, which is just the thumbs up to indicate that you also want this question answered. Just letting everyone know that this session will be recorded, and if you have any questions or concerns about this, please feel free to contact UTS via the website at the bottom of this page. 

So as I mentioned, I'm Dejana and I'm a senior manager in the PWC analytics team, and today I'll be talking about my five year journey from studying mathematics at UTS to starting work at in the PWC analytics team. So my journey started in high school when my favourite subjects were maths and maths and science subjects. I did physics, chemistry and three and four maths and I wasn't sure what what I wanted to do for my career. So I thought, well, if I'm good at maths and I really enjoy doing it, I might as well just continue this. So I enrolled in a Bachelor of Science and Mathematics at UTS. So once I completed my bachelor, I stuck around for another year and completed an honours in mathematics and statistics. During my honours, I got an internship and worked part time at a small insurance company called Calliden. I worked part time during my honours in the actuarial team where I did some reporting and statistical analysis. And then I continued to work there once, once I graduated my honours as well. About six months after that, I thought I kind of want to be in a bigger team at a bigger organisation. So I applied to the PWC analytics team and luckily I was successful. And now about five and a half years down the track, again, I'm a senior manager in the team and that's a picture of my little dog there called Vuki, who's keeping, is keeping me company during lockdown. 

So a little bit about studying mathematics and statistics at UTS, you get to do a wide range of subjects throughout the degree across different areas, I've listed here. And then towards the end of your degree, you can focus in on the topics and subjects you really want to, you really want to. So the first area and one of the main ones is statistics. And statistics is all about analysing data and trying to draw conclusions from that data and understand the results. So then there's probability, which is about understanding the chance of events occurring. So something that's very prominent right now is understanding what the probability of positive COVID cases is out of however many tests were done the previous day, for example. Then there's calculus, which is an extension of what you do in high school from algebra. So you learn about limits, functions, you do derivatives and integrals. Then there's optimisation and what optimisation is, is learning different types of methods to help you find the best possible solution where they use a range of solutions you can choose from. So think about it. If you're traveling from location A to location B and you can take many different paths to get there. But what is the path that will get you there in the least amount of time, for example? Or maybe you want to travel the least amount of kilometres, so which path you choose? That's what optimisation is about. 

Then there's experimental design, and that is around the design and analysis of experiments and surveys. So this is an area I really liked and continued on to study in my honours year. Then finally, during your during your second and third in maths, you get to choose a sub-major and what this means is you get to choose about four to six subjects that are part of a different faculty that you can explore. And one of those is business, which is what I chose. So I got to do some finance, economics and accounting subjects. And then another option could also be information technology, where you learn about information systems, programming and databases. So one of the things I really enjoyed about studying maths was that you really get to learn about how to problem solve and do some critical thinking. So it's not just about opening up a textbook and memorising definitions. You really need to understand how how these things work, these functions or algorithms and methods, and be able to apply them to different sets of data. So you're always, always working in a slightly different problem that has the same foundation. And this is what has really helped me in the workforce, this this baseline of problem solving and critical thinking. 

So some tips I have, if you're looking to study maths or stats, at UTS is make sure you attend all lectures and tutorials. This seems like an obvious one, but it is really important because, as I mentioned, it's not really a subject where you can just memorise some definitions through a textbook. The way the easiest way and the best way to learn mathematics is verbally listening to people explain it to you, similar to how you actually learn in high school. Someone's explaining the concept to you and you're working through the problem on a whiteboard or blackboard, for example. Second tip is don't be afraid to ask questions, so just always just put your hand up and say, you know, ask someone to repeat something, or explain it a certain way, a different way to make sure you really understand the concept or what is being taught in your lecture or tutorial. And this is also good feedback for your teachers as well. And then finally, study with your friends. So this was an adjustment for me compared to high school. So in high school for the HSC, I studied a lot independently. But what I found at university is studying in groups is really beneficial because everyone understands something different to you in a different way. So if you study in a group and you're not sure on a particular question or how to go about solving something, someone in your group of friends or who you're studying with is likely to know this and you can help each other out. 

So my honours year was quite different to my undergrad, so I continued to study mathematics and statistics in my honours year, but that is 50 percent thesis and the 50 percent coursework, which is just doing subjects. So my thesis topic was a comparison of methods for finding optimal experimental designs for estimation and discrimination. And you spend a lot of a lot of time focusing in on and learning the details about about your topic of choice. And you get to, so you're assigned a supervisor, which you can see on my screen there of my thesis paper, and they help you along the way and they guide you to help you finish your thesis. So one of the fun things I did during my honours was learning to program in R which which I didn't have the opportunity to do in my undergrad and learning R, was really beneficial because it is a statistical programming language that's that's used in the workforce. So it prepared me for working that way. And it helped me to find my internship as well. Another great thing was that I got to attend the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute summer school, so I went to Newcastle University during summer for about four weeks. And I looked and I did two subjects, two subjects there. And you meet people from all over Australia and studying all different branches of mathematics and statistics. 

And what that allowed me to do was, was reduce the number of subjects I had to do in my second semester of my honours year because I was working, I was working by that time. So it allowed me to spend less time at uni because I had work as well. And then I also tutored introductory statistics subjects during my honours year, which was really good because it kept my basics of statistics fresh in my mind. So if you end up doing an honours year, some tips for me are start writing your thesis early. And also, yes, it is important to get work experience during university, and I encourage everyone to do that, but don't but don't leave. Sorry, but leave enough, make sure you leave enough time for your studies and some ways do that would be getting a summer internship or in my case, I just got an internship where I worked part time. So there are many ways to get experience during, during your studies as well. And finally, that takes me to what I do now. So, as I mentioned, I'm a senior manager in the PWC analytics team and I work in the consulting space. And what I get to do through that is work on different types of projects for different types of clients. So I'm not always running the same report every week. I get to work on all different types of data, problems and explore really innovative ways of solving these problems. 

So one of the ways I always have to keep learning on the job as well is learning new analytics tools and methods to help me solve the problems. Because as you can imagine, I'm at work, I'm not writing out formulas, for example. I, I have to I have to use different types of tools depending sometimes on what the client uses. So some of the tools that I use. Alteryx, so that's a licensed software where you can do data preparation and manipulation. Then there is so I mentioned R, which is open source as well as Python. Python is in some ways similar to R where you can do, data analysis and visualisations and all sorts of different things. Then I learnt, sas, which is another programming language, and then Power BI and tableau are both data visualisation tools, which do similar things, what you can create interactive dashboards. So at my job, I also get to work on different clients, so I work a lot with government clients such as Transport for New South Wales and the Department of Education, Skills and Employment. And then I also get to work on some public sorry, private sector clients such as IAG and AMP. So in both these cases, these I worked in the insurance area, so I actually got to use some of the skills I first I learnt at my first job, which was great to be able to use that. 

So some tips for me. Working in the workforce as a maths and stats grad is as a fresh graduate, try look for a supportive learning environment in your first job. It's really important to be around supportive, I guess, people that support you learning that have time to teach and that encourage, encourage growth in the technical areas that you're interested in. So be confident about what you know or you might not know in the workforce. It's OK. No one expects you to know everything. So just be honest and open and confident about what you know. So in hand with that is be proactive. When you start work, it is it is once again, it's different to uni, so take your tasks and own them as your responsibilities. Try and improve them, do a good job and always just be proactive in the work you do. And finally. Make sure you tell people what you're interested in and take that into your own hands, so be open and honest once again and just let people know I want to be doing this. So I'd appreciate an opportunity in doing that. So people around you and your managers can help you can help you grow. So that concludes my talk. 

I'm just going to have a look at the questions that have come up in the Q&A section and go through those now. OK, so the first question is, I enjoy maths, but don't want a nine to five job sitting in front of a computer all day. What different ways can I use my math skills? Great question. So. I would encourage you or what are different ways is, one of the different ways is probably what I do in consulting. You get to do, you get to try many different areas of work, you're not actually stuck at a computer or day nine to five like you may like you might think. So, for example, last year I was working with another with another team at PWC that does supply chain work. And I was actually out at a hospital talking to nurses and other medical staff that work in hospitals. And I actually got to see firsthand how they do and then relate that back to what I'm doing with working with the data and understanding the analysis. And there's probably a range of things out there that where you can you can do some stuff kind of first hand, such as maybe. You know, you would have to use maths in engineering, for example, so you could you could be out at a construction site looking at things to do, calculations for that. So there are some options if you don't want to sit at a computer all day. So what repeat oh, sorry, I'll go back up next question. Is do you have to be really good at maths, in Year 12, or is it an area that you can develop more at uni? I mean, if you're good at maths and you want to do it at uni, it's definitely an advantage. I believe in in a purely maths degree, you might have to do some extra study or upskilling in some areas because there would be learning curve but never give up. If you really like maths, just continue that. And there's always extra resources at uni that can you know, we can do additional studies and work on improving your math skills. 

Next question, is math and statistics hard at uni? I like it, but I'm not getting one hundred percent in all my exams. That is that is completely fine. You know, I didn't even at school or at uni, I didn't get a HDs in all my subjects. There's always things you'll naturally, naturally better at or some subjects, but you might not be as good as others. So that's fine. And remember, at work, you don't have to use every single, the knowledge you learn for every single subject, so you'll probably end up pursuing something that you're really good at. How did you decide what you wanted to actually do as a career? Was there some particular event that led to you wanting to do the type of work that you do, or did you just kind of fall into it? So that probably happened when I decided, it was probably when I was interning the insurance company. I was in actuary reporting team where part of my job was running monthly reports, running quarterly reports. And, you know, it was sometimes boring or tedious because it was the same thing every month. And then there was another part of my job where I would be asked by the marketing team, how do you can you look at some data for us? Can you figure out if we're getting a particular type of customer? Then there was the client team and they were saying, can you look at the data? Because is there is there a trend with this type of claim, for example. And I really enjoyed that part, which which led me to decide, OK, I want to try consulting because in consulting you get to try different problems and you get to talk to clients about their problems and have them explain their problem to you and you help solve them. So that was, that was the turning point for me, just getting in the workforce and just realising what I like and then taking that and going from there. So hi, I was wondering if I want to focus on another area of mathematics unrelated to statistics. What are the options? Yeah, of course. So there are, so on the screen where I showed the different subjects. So you can go into any of those areas. My focus was, you know, stats and experimental design. And you could go into something like optimisation. And there's an area called operations research, where you can basically work on using these optimisation algorithms to solve different types of problems. One field where one of my colleagues does a lot of projects in this space is in the mining industry, they often have these optimisation problems that need to be solved. So that's that's another option there. But there are, there are many. What fields can you get into after studying maths and stats. So you can go into finance as well, I have quite a few friends at CBA, they do things like credit risk modelling. You can also continue to do research at university. So some of my friends continued on to do their PhD. One of them now is working at Silicon Valley at a tech startup. And then there's also, insurance, which is a common one. What honours means. So honours is, it's I guess it's...I'm not 100 percent sure if it's linked to an undergraduate degree, but it is where you spend a year doing like a research project. And you do and you do postgraduate studies there, so I did additional subjects in my honours year and I had to write a thesis which is I guess think about it like a really big report of hundreds of pages. About a particular topic. 

Can you combine maths with other disciplines like business management? Yes, you sure can. So I did when I when I did my sub-major in finance, I got to learn about some of these applications of maths in business. There's actually a subject called probably still exists, called quantitative finance, where it's a lot of maths and just applied to business problems and situations, so it's definitely applicable. Sounds like your honours year was very important in developing your career. Is that true? Yes, it is, definitely. So I got to learn a lot of skills that I learned that I use in the workforce now, such as programming. So I learnt sas and R in my honours year, which I immediately used at work. And also working, working more independently as well, which is something that you have to do at work sometimes, sometimes you're on projects with lots of team members surrounding you. Other times it's just you and someone else. So during my honours year, especially for my thesis part, it's my supervisor, which if I compare that to the workforce, it's like having a manager telling you, OK, let's do this analysis. Let me know how you go in one week, try these different things. You Google them, you figure out how to do them, you fail, you succeed, and then you come back to your supervisor and say, OK, this is what I was able to do. I need your help with these things. And that is it is similar to the workforce. So it was very important. 

Do you find that working in a role that is so focused on a topic like maths and stats can be a challenge in terms of motivation and energy? I don't. For me, it isn't because maths and stats is such an evolving area. If you if you're familiar with terms like machine learning, artificial intelligence, that is all the all the foundations of that actually maths and stats. So you can actually do a lot with maths and stats backgrounds. You can explore all different areas if you if you choose a particular one to focus in on. In my job, I do a lot of different stuff which keeps me entertained. Or you can go go the alternate route where you might you might want to become very, very detailed in one certain area of of of that. Such as building an algorithm that detects cancer out of X-ray images, for example. What maths course is recommended to do maths at uni. So if you're looking to study maths at uni, so I did a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, which covers you know maths and stats subjects as well. So that's the course I did if you're interested in doing maths. Would you consider maths and statistics a future focused career? Definitely. With evolving technologies and as I just mentioned, the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence, I'd definitely say it is a future proof career. Would you hire UTS maths and grads graduate now you run a team, why? Yes, I would, because I'm aware of what you learn at uni and how important those foundational skills are to doing analytics. So, yes, that's why I would. 

What reputation does maths and stats graduates have in the workplace? I would say a very good reputation. UTS is known to have the up and coming courses and degrees and to cater their degrees for what industry is doing. So it's very relevant and they have a great reputation in this area. Would you consider doing or recommending mathematics postgrad? Well, there's a range of options to choose from. I did an honours year which I was more than happy with, and that was enough to allow me to enter the workforce at a great level. And as I mentioned, many of my friends have have done PhDs, my fiance is actually currently doing a PhD with UTS in the maths faculty as well. So I know it is a great option if you do want to do postgraduate studies. 

And that finishes off all the questions I'm just going to, share my screen again and say thank you for everyone. I hope you enjoyed my talk and I hope and I hope it was useful to you. You can find a recording of this talk on the UTS website here and of course, all course info is is available on the website or you can register for open day as well. Thanks again. Have a great day. 

Welcome to the UTS Student Insight Series. We are delighted to present this new series during National Science Week and hope to inspire you towards a career in science and maths. My name is Caitlin, and today I will take you through my journey to becoming a Master's student in medical biotechnology, and I'll be taking your questions at the end. Before we get started, I would like to acknowledge that Gadigal people of the Eora nation upon whose ancestral lands our city campus now stands. I would also like to pay respect to the elders, both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for this land. Just a little housekeeping before we get started, if you have any questions during today's webinar, please type them into the Q&A box in your Zoom control panel and I'll do my best to answer the questions at the end. If you like a question that someone else has asked and would like it answered, please use the upvoting tool, which is a little thumbs up symbol next to the question itself. Being an online event, do bear with us if there are any technical issues, we will work to resolve them quickly. If you find you're not able to access to talk at any point, please log out and log back in again as that usually resolves such issues. This session will be recorded, but we will not be recording any video or audio input from the audience, you may contact UTS at science.future@uts.edu.au.to discuss any concerns or questions that you may have. 

So my pathway to university started during my high school years. To give a little bit of background about myself, I was born in Sydney, I grew up on the Central Coast, and then I went to high school in Newcastle. So it's a bit full circle that I'm back in Sydney for university. I went to the Hunter School of the Performing Arts High School from Years 7 to 12, which is a selective performing arts school. I was a dance student and danced for 15 years, but I always saw it as more of a hobby than a viable career for me. After school, I found that I fell out of love with dance and during the HSC, I decided to take a variety of different subjects. I did general maths, standard English, biology, hospitality, and dance. I didn't really know what I wanted to do after school and so I just chose what I enjoyed at the time. I only really thought about my ATAR until much later. I ended up with the an ATAR of 78.65 And I was top five in my school for biology and hospitality. And luckily enough, this was a high enough ATAR for what I wanted to get into in university. So the first thing I considered when applying to university was where do I want to study? I think a lot of people expected me to choose somewhere that was a lot closer to home, like in Newcastle. 

But after I took an excursion to UTS in Year 12, when we were doing HSC English workshops, I knew that this was a place for me. The location was a big deciding factor for me as it's right at the centre of the city and there's so many opportunities down in Sydney. It's also a young university, only 33 years old, giving it that modern edge. Another thing that UTS is big about is interdisciplinary work, and that is through their flexibility to explore other faculties in elective subjects. And finally, the facilities at UTS are of research quality and built for collaboration, which really appealed to me. And of course, the superlab just looks amazing. So why did I choose biotechnology in my undergraduate degree? So I chose to study The Bachelor of Biotechnology, as I had an interest in biology and I came top five in my school for HSC biology. Biotechnology, to me was a new and exciting field that I'd never heard of. And for anyone who doesn't know, a broad definition of biotechnology is the utilisation of biological systems and living organisms to develop or create different products. So this biotechnology term encompasses a lot and the main three subdisciplines of that medical, food and environmental. So examples of these include things such as vaccine development, drug delivery systems, developing strategies to improve food production and cut down on pesticide usage. 

It also includes the sustainable production of products and, of course, renewable energy sources. So when I did my bachelor's, I didn't have any specified major. And instead I took subjects in all of these areas. But I found myself leaning more towards the medical side of things. So one of the major highlights in both my undergrad and postgrad science has been the lab work opportunities. So all or most of my subjects have had a practical element to them and during the first year of my degree, I had a lot of classes in the superlab, which was really, really cool. And that gave me a hands on experience with transferable skills that you can take into work outside of university. So as you can see on the slide, there are some images of cells that I stained to myself during classes. So the first one to the left is human blood cells. The second one is a picture of E.coli and the last one with just a few yeast cells. So another major highlight of my undergrad degree was the summer semester, so I took three subjects during summer semesters and these were hematology, pharmacology and summer studio. So this allowed me to take three subjects during the main semesters when I was living out of home and had to work to support myself. 

So hematology and pharmacology were both run over two weeks, five days a week, and they had the lectures in the morning and then the practicals in the afternoon. So this is a really interesting, intensive experience and helps me to learn and retain information within a short period of time. Another highlight, of course, is the summer studio, which is actually a part of the engineering faculty. And this was a design challenge that was run over six weeks in a team of eight students. And we were tasked with improving the design and efficiency of open source PCR machine. So a PCR machine makes copies of DNA that can be used in, for the lab work. And so this challenge we use design thinking, which is a engineering concept. And I also learned different skills, like how to use a laser cutter and 3 printer, which I never thought I would come into contact in my whole life, which was really awesome to see. And I would definitely highly recommend taking electives in other faculties as you get exposed to such a range of skills that you can then take bits and pieces and see what you like. So on the slide there on the bottom picture, the left is what we had to work off and the right is the finished product. So I graduated from the Bachelor of Biotechnology in 2018, and I just took the first job that I could find. So I took a job that was in quality control in a chemistry lab for a pharmaceutical company. 

And if I found it very repetitive and I wasn't passionate about the work I was doing, I had barely done any chemistry except for my first year of study. And I found that I also wasn't qualified for other positions that I wanted. I found a real interest in becoming a research assistant in genetic research, but because I hadn't done any honours project, I was not eligible for those positions. So that's when I decided to come back to you to pursue my master's degree. And this would provide the experience I had to get into a research career. And it could also be a potential pathway for PhD. And what really appealed to me about doing this degree was the mix of coursework and research components, and I also knew that UTS has a high quality of teaching, as I did my undergraduate there as well. So during this first semester of my master's degree, I did an internship with a startup through UTS startups, it's called Metafact, and it aims to connect people with trusted evidence on questions that impact life, society and the world around them. So what they do is they source and aggregate questions direct for thousands of sorry, they source and aggregate answers direct from thousands of independent researchers and experts to help people make evidence based decisions. 

So my role in this was I did a lot of search engine optimisation. So looking at what most people are Googling to see what kind of questions we could answer and contact our researchers about. So I was able to work directly with the founder of this company as it was a very early stage startup at that point. And I saw the day to day running of a science communication startup, which was really interesting to see. So this was run out of Fishburners, which is a startup hub in Wynyard and a co-working space. So there is a whole range of different startup companies under the same roof. And through this, I was able to soak up the startup environment and talk to other founders about their experiences. So currently, I am part of the UTS team for 2021 in the Australian Synthetic Biology Challenge and I'm representing UTS on the national scale. So the point of this challenge is to develop and progress an original synthetic biology project designed to be innovative and scientifically feasible. So this also involves not only the science part of it, but we attend workshops around commercialisation, intellectual property and also about pitching to investors. So we are a team of eight students, a mix of masters and undergrads, and we aim to improve the production of high value chemical compounds known as terpenes in the photosynthetic organisms cyanobacteria. So these chemical compounds are used for pharmaceuticals. 

They're used in food, ingredients, skin care, perfumes. They have a whole range of applications. And the way that we're trying to improve this production is we're trying to engineer these protein nano compartments like the one you see on the slide. It looks like a little ball. And we're trying to make the reactions within the cell more efficient by using this nano compartment to capture different parts of chemical reactions. Unfortunately, due to COVID, we've had to pivot. So we haven't been in the lab as of yet. And I'm not sure if we will, but there is plenty that we could still do. We've already done a lot of work on bioinformatics, so looking at different gene sequences and protein sequences to see how we can utilise them in different organisms, we have been looking at designing genes and designing plasmids so that we can put that into E.coli To produce these nano cages. And we're also looking at an element of biodesign which will help us to consider how our project has potential impacts on the environment, society and also if there's any ethical issues surrounding this project. So what am I up to next or what am I doing right now? I am currently doing a year long research project which is equivalent to and on an honours year. It's part of the master's of philosophy in medical biotechnology. And the philosophy part of that basically just means that it's part coursework, which I've just completed and part research which I'm starting right now. 

So I found my supervisor through the synthetic biology challenge and I am working in the field of nano medicine and looking at protein nano compartments. So I want to know how the immune system responds to these compartments, what they're known as encapsulins. And these can be used as vaccines, drug delivery systems. And it looks like a little ball, as you can see on the slide there, there's two different ones. And what they do is they load different molecules inside of them, like cargo. And so this work will also include some bioinformatics. So looking at how we can model these protein compartments to visualise their structures as it's a very new newly discovered class of protein nano compartments and there hasn't been a lot of work done on them. So lastly, I just wanted to talk about my top tips of surviving and thriving at university. So my number one is definitely stay organised. This has been huge for me. Scheduling is a massive help with keeping on top of the assignments, scheduling in your classes, especially working in remote. It can be very easy to say, oh, it's recorded, I'll watch it later. But if you actually do that too often, things will start to back up and build up and you don't want that. So attend the lectures live and you won't have that problem. Another important tip is learning to reference early on, so referencing is key to any piece of scientific writing and you will need to learn how to do it well and consistently for pretty much anything you write in science. 

So there is a software that you can get on your computer, there's endnote, which I use and mendeley and all of this information is on the UTS library website. And they also have a lot of resources about how to do a literature search, which has been critical for me. Another thing is there's no such thing as a stupid question, which no matter how much people say, it is definitely true. So being engaged with your professors, your classmates, just talking to people and asking questions is really helpful in university. And lastly, just have fun. There will be no other time like your university years. And so I would encourage everyone to join a club or society. I'm part of the UTS Literary Society and we have a book club which is really, really fun. And so if you have a hobby or passion, enjoy or just want to make some friends, hop onto the Activate website and there's plenty of clubs you can join. So now I will answer some questions, just a reminder to pop them in the Q&A box and upvote any ones that you would like me to, to answer. 

So the first question I have here, what are some further study and career pathways that this course provides? So as I mentioned earlier, it is definitely a pathway to a PhD program. So that is one major option. Other career pathways are definitely in things such as like medical device companies, biotechnology companies research and development. You can even take the route of going into patent examination. So looking at IP, intellectual property. They're doing government policy and regulation. There are huge amount of options. The next question is, as someone who took general mass in high school, do you find studying science challenging at times because of the maths that is required? That's a great question. So I yeah, I did general maths and I found once I got to university, I was a little freaked out by the chemistry to begin with. But there are so many resources at UTS that can help you with that. They have a maths and science study centre where you can go and get help with any of your coursework that you're struggling with just to ask questions, there's also programs such as peer assisted learning, and so they have people who have done the subject previously, who run tutoring sessions as a group, and they help you answer any problems you might have. And so that's really what saved me in my first year is attending these kind of services. The next question is, what career options are there for biotechnology? Is it hard to find a job? So biotechnology is such a broad field, it covers so many areas, a lot of it is genetic engineering. You can go into microbial engineering, you can go into the computer science of bioinformatics and data analysis. You can go into vaccine development, quality control, quality assurance, different pharmaceutical companies. So there are a wide range of different career options out there. And is it hard to find a job? I guess, during this COVID time, it's hard to find any job, but it's definitely an emerging field. And there are plenty of new biotechnology companies popping up each year. So there's definitely room for growth in the industry there. 

Next question is would medical biotechnology be a good area of study for someone interested in pursuing a career in pharmacy. So in terms of that, if you're talking about pharmaceuticals and looking at new drug discovery, medical sales, pharmaceuticals, quality control or quality assurance in pharmaceuticals, then yes, definitely. But if you're talking about, say, hospital pharmacy or dispensing, I would say probably not. I would say probably look at the pharmacy degree as there will be subjects that are more relevant to that. But in terms of the pharmaceutical industry, working in industry, definitely. So the next question I have is how much of your degree is in the labs versus online this year? Does it affect how much you learn? So fortunately, during the autumn semester, earlier this year, we had a mix of online and in-person because the master's degrees tend to be a lot smaller cohorts than an undergraduate degree. 

And so I think we had maybe 30 people in our lab classes that could be split into two time slots. And so there were only 15 people in the labs on campus at a time, which was easy for us to social distance and put masks. But that would be a lot harder, of course, if there were a bigger class. So it, I found the learning online. So I had a lot of lectures online and I found that it wasn't really any different to in person. I found it, yeah, I really enjoyed it because you could go back and watch it online if you missed it. And yeah, I guess just, just being open to communicating via email is really important as well. So I quite enjoyed online stuff. There's another question about are there any applications of what you study in medical technology to viruses like COVID? Yes, definitely. So there, you could pick to do virology during your degree, which is a subject at UTS. And I did a subject called Biotechnology Solutions to Infectious Disease. And that was last year. So we looked at a lot of COVID examples. So, yes, there's a lot of opportunity to go into vaccine development for viruses. And that's yeah, that's a huge field at the moment, obviously. 

So the next one I have is, when doing, you're doing assignments at uni is it more practical or more exam like? So for my Master's, I haven't had any exams. That's a thing that UTS is kind of, I think, I think they they don't really focus on exams a lot. So in my Master's I haven't had any final exams, which is nice. In terms of practical, yes. So doing assignments, it's all based on real world research that is going on at UTS at the time or research that's being done elsewhere. And so that gives you a really good idea of what it's like to design an experiment, perform an experiment and then write up a report. And so that gives you a lot of experience writing reports, because that's something that you will have to do as a scientist. I really like biology, but I'm not top of my class. Is the science a lot harder at uni? Do you need to get great marks to enjoy the study side? So this is a tough one, but I think that if you really enjoy science, it's worth pursuing, even if you may not get top of the class. I know I've always been a pretty average student at school. But that didn't stop me from pursuing science because I'm really passionate about trying to find treatments to diseases that had previously been incurable. And so if it's a passion of yours, I would say the only way to get better is by practicing and studying. 

How do you make friends when studying online so much? Yeah, this is difficult, I won't lie, but I think the best way to make friends when starting online is by joining a club or society at UTS. So there are a range of different clubs in society, as I said before, and a lot of them are doing online events. So whether that's like trivia nights or game nights or just even Discord calls. It's a really good place to meet people. The next question is, would you describe biotechnology as a niche or broad area of science? Definitely broad for sure. Biotechnology is this huge umbrella term that covers everything from the environment to medical and within, say, medical, there's another bunch of different niches, you would say. And I think as you, as you go on with your studies, you find what you like and you narrow down as you go. Like, I knew that I liked molecular biology. And so I went towards that kind of direction. And then I found out about these protein compartments. And so then I kind of pivoted again. But there are definitely a lot of knowledge that can transfer very easily. Did you have to do UCAT, to do medical biology, biotechnology? I'm not really sure what UCAT is, but I didn't have to do any exams to get into the Master's or I had to do was have a credit GPA and write a statement as to why I wanted to do it. 

And I got entrance. The only test that you have to do is like a, English competency test. But other than that, there's no exams for entry. It's all based on your undergraduate marks. And I think we'll take this last question here. This will be the last one. Do you feel like you were at a disadvantage by only doing biology in high school and studying other sciences at uni? A little bit, but I didn't feel too stressed out about it, I guess. In my first year, I took chemistry. First year of university, so I took chemistry, biology subjects and the physics, which is very daunting, but I, I just worked really hard to catch up. That means going to UPASS sessions, peer assisted study sessions, going to the maths and science help centre, asking questions when I wasn't sure, starting a study group with my friends so we can all help each other. And so I didn't feel disadvantaged at all, really. I just worked as hard as I could to catch up. 

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. This talk will be recorded and will be available on the Science Week website, on UTS' website. Make sure you check out the page for the future students and for all your course information and to register for open day on the 28th and 31st of August. Thank you very much, everyone. 

Welcome to the UTS Student Insight series, we're delighted to present this new series during National Science Week and hope to inspire you towards a career in science and maths. I'm Gracie, and today I will take you through my journey into becoming an undergraduate student and would be happy to answer any questions you have at the end. Before we get started, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal` people of the Eora nation upon whose ancestral lands our city campus now stands. I would also like to pay respects to elders both past and present, and acknowledge them as the traditional custodians of land, knowledge for this land. I'm a final year Bachelor of Science student in the School of Life Sciences at UTS with all of my subjects aligned to medical science. During my time UTS, I secured an internship at one of the foremost information laboratories in Australia, where I'll be returning to this December. My research project was about drug compounds working together to kill the bacteria that cause disease in humans. My research interest is centred around neglected tropical diseases and how they affect the central nervous system. And upon graduation, I plan to complete a PhD in this field. Just a little housekeeping before we get started, if you have any questions during today's webinar, please head them into the Q&A box, the museum control panel, and we'll do our best to answer them along the way. If you would like a question, if you like a question rather that someone else has asked and would like it answered, please use the upvoting, which is the middle thumbs up next to the symbol, next to the question itself. 

Being an online event do bear with us if there are any technical issues, we will work to resolve them quickly. And if you find that you are not able to access the talk at any point, please log out and log back and again as that usually resolves the issue. Just letting you know that the session will be recorded, but we will not be recording any video or audio input from the audience, you may contact UTS at science.future@uts.edu.au, if you have any concerns or questions. So I had an unconventional education. I left school at the end of Year 9 to pursue to pursue belly full time and eventually moved up, moved to Germany before getting injured. During this, I completed high school through distance education. And then when I got injured, I came back to Sydney and completed Years 11 and 12 in three terms at TAFE got my ATAR. I initially went to the University of Sydney. However, due to a health issue, I was unsure I would have the marks to get into medicine, which is what I wanted to do at the time. So I took some time off during the lockdown of last year to focus on my health and then started that UTS at the end of 2020. Even though I completed my HSC in an accelerated format at a vocational college, I was still able to do subjects that interested me at the time. 

These were advanced English, extension one English and extension two English, biology, modern history and general mathematics. Nowadays, I wish I had done more science subjects like chemistry and physics in high school, having such a focus on English and history has definitely helped me in scientific communication, which I think is more relevant now more than ever. As I said, scientific communication has never been more important than it is right now. Manipulation of scientific fact can cause fear and panic among communities that do not have the resources or the capacity to understand the facts as they are presented by the media. A very typical of this is the paper which I'm circling with my curser right there, which was published by The Lancet in 1998. Here it was suggested that the MMR vaccine causes autism, which is something that first author Andrew Wakefield has become infamous for. This paper was eventually retracted and he subsequently lost his medical license and any accreditation he had as an academic. However, this link between vaccines and autism is still a hot topic today 23 years on. This in itself is indicative of how misinformation persists. Furthermore, as we saw in the initial uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific communication can have large impacts on policy and political decision making, which is evident especially in America this year. So science writing, is not just about pages and pages of dense material. They could also be posters and infographics, posters are a particularly effective way of communicating an overview of a study such as a thesis in a situation where it needs to be expressed concisely, for example, at a competition or conference. 

They could be in the style of a popular science magazine, so magazines like the Scientific American and New Scientist are particularly good at communicating hot topics effectively. These may be aimed at an audience that doesn't have a strong understanding of the concepts that are being discussed or to people that have some concept about science but are from a different field. For example, a biologist who's interested in reading about astronomy. And then, of course, there are the big scary ones, and whilst it may seem daunting, after some time you get used to reading these and during your science education at university, you pick up new skills that make daunting information like this, easier to read, understand and write. For me personally, it was having a good idea of how statistics are presented and what they inferred that made the biggest difference. And this is a core first year subject at many universities for science students. So why did I choose a bachelor of science with a flexible major, so a flexible degree allowed me to choose subjects that fit my interests. It is especially useful for people who are really decided on a path and they know exactly what they want to do at university and onto their career or for people that may be a bit more unsure and would like to gain really wide knowledge base and try different things before making a decision. 

Doing a flexible degree also allowed me to free up some of my elective units to do a research internship where I learned new practical skills and made new connections that have improved my chances of securing an honours and postgrad position. Undertaking an internship or a placement in last year university is immeasurably valuable and probably one of the best things that I've done at university and I would recommend everyone to do so. So as I said before, research in medical science has never been more important. Research in medical science is both extremely important and rewarding. University opens you up to ideas and concepts you may not have thought of before. So in your first year, as I said before, everyone in your specific faculty will do the same eight subjects, then you get to your second subjects and here you are able to choose subjects that are of more intermediate difficulty. We also have the option of undertaking an internship or placement in your second and third years. The subjects that you do here will help you identify your interests and give you an idea as to whether you would like to pursue an honours or another higher research degree. And so in the blue bubble there are the subjects that I chose for my second year. Third year subjects, these give you more practical, real life skills, they are the most advanced of the subjects that you will be doing. 

And as I previously mentioned, I'm interested in infectious diseases. More specifically, I'm interested in how the brain and nervous system can be implicated in infection. A flexible major has allowed me to choose directly related subjects such as parasitology, clinical bacteriology and neuroscience so that I may understand these systems more. Furthermore, in these subjects, you will finesse and learn more skills which are applicable to a post university career, of which the opportunities are endless. Where will a career in STEM take you? When people think of medical science, I think about most often they think that the majority of careers of becoming a doctor, chemist or researcher. However, there is something out there for everyone. If you are interested in health and chemistry, you may develop life saving pharmaceuticals if you are fascinated in using technology and engineering within science, you may go on to print 3D heart valves. And as I said before, science communication is so important, and these this skill may lead to opportunities within journalism and policy. With physics, the opportunities are endless. To name just a few, you may be a bio astro noise light particle physicist. I'll stop myself there, but as you can see, the opportunities in science are boundless. And as the world grows, new information is constantly uncovered. And as such, the scope for new careers constantly evolves. Jobs that exist when you are at university may not have existed today. 

Finally, I just want to return quickly to The Bachelor of Science at UTS. So this is some quick information about how The Bachelor is generally structured and the major options that may be available to you. However, this information evolves year by year. So generally, a Bachelor of Science is a three year full time degree or six years part time. And full time means that you would take generally around three or four subjects per semester and you have an option to choose a major which has a structured course progression, or you can tailor your degree to your interests, how I did. So, as you can see there, the flexible major is the one at the top. That's one that I have done. However, there is, as you can see at the bottom, a straight medical science one. And these ones have course structures that have already been outlined really nicely into each semester, so it provides a really logical progression. And as I said before, these throughout science, you get lots of opportunities to potentially take placements or internships, and these really help you develop your practical skills within a research setting. It is important to note also, even if you do not immediately get into the course you had your heart set on, it does not mean that you should stop there. The university is always there to help you and there are many people you can speak to in order to gain some more clarity as to what your options are. So that's it from me. If you have a question, please write in the chat and I will endeavour to answer it as best as I can. Just type them into the Q&A box. You can upvote the ones that you think are interesting and I'll try and get to as many as I can. 

So what do you think the job prospects are after just a medical science with no further study? So what jobs would be available after three years? So. Obviously, I think a lot of people think that getting involved with science means that you would have to undertake an honours or master's or a PhD to really get into it. But there are lots of job options out there for you if you just want to do your three year bachelor's, some from the top of my head involve things like, you going to hospital, being a hospital scientist to work for a path lab, performing diagnostics. These things are really important right now, especially with COVID a lot of people that I know, a working COVID labs and they're not typically working in virology, but that's a really large need. So lots of options there. What was the process of applying for an internship like, and was it suddenly had to do on your own or does UTS assist you? I did this, I found my researcher on my own, purely by looking through UTS has a, it gets published every year, a list of honours projects, people, researchers that are looking for students. And it tells you a little bit about what they study and what the current research options in the lab are. So what I did is I just read through lots of them at the beginning of the year, and then I emailed lots and lots of people. And, you, what I think is really important is you go in and you have a chat to them and you see, you have to see if you guys get along. There's nothing worse than I guess, spending eight weeks with someone where your interests don't really align and you feel stuck. So I definitely recommend doing an internship, though I think it's been super valuable for me. 

Can medical science lead to medicine pathways? The answer is yes and no. There is no straight progression into medicine from a medical science degree, and I think that's true for most universities. Around Australia, everyone that want to do postgraduate medicine or dentistry has to sit the GAMSAT. And depending on the university, they take a couple of different things into account and they weigh different things, different ways. So, for example, a university might take your GPA or your weighted average mark from university, and then they would also consider your GAMSAT score and Section three in the GAMSAT that is notoriously difficult. And I think that's especially where medical science can help you out, because in medical science, you don't just learn about anatomy. You also do a lot of biology, chemistry and physics and all of these things involved in the Section three part of the, Section three, part of the GAMSAT. So having a knowledge, a working knowledge of what you're getting yourself into, I think is really important before starting to study for the GAMAT. 

So Jaya has asked, what was my favourite part about studying science at UTS instead of the universities? What I really like about UTS is that it's really practical and it's really hands on, and I think what I really like about it is that there are so many placement and research opportunities as an undergraduate, and I think that's quite rare. I'm not really sure, I can't really speak for other universities because I'm not quite sure how they structure these things. But I would definitely say that that's something that UTS does really well. And I definitely feel more prepared to enter the workforce than if I hadn't done these things. So Annabelle has asked, are there opportunities to study parts of medical science, for example, the reproductive system or the endocrine system. Yes, and also no, again, so I think what has become most obvious to me when, as I've progressed through my university career is how inextricably linked that all of these systems are so. You may have a specific focus in something, and so, for example, one of the factors that UTS focuses quite a lot on infection and immunity, but what's really evident now is that all of the systems in the human body affect every other one. So, for example, what you eat, and your normal flora and fauna affects your general health, and this is the same for your endocrine system, especially because it's reproductive. Those two really go hand in hand because there's a really big emphasis on hormonal control. And I think it's really important to be able to understand all of these things and also to do chemistry and biology, to understand the molecular basis of what you're looking at as well. 

So I've been asked, what would my Year 12 subjects I did advanced, extension one, an extension to English, I did biology. I also did general mathematics and modern history. It's not that long ago but I can't remember. I'm not sure what I want to do when I'm older, but med is an option if I get the ATAR for it. But what if I don't? I assume you're saying what do you do if you don't get the ATAR for medicine? And the reality is to get into medicine as an undergraduate is extremely hard that not many places anywhere in Australia and a lot of people try to get into medicine for a very long time and feel really disheartened. But I think you can give yourself the best chance of getting into medicine by doing a medical science degree first, because even if you, you know, you go to medicine, to med school and then in your first year, you'll have to learn a lot of the stuff that you learn when you're doing a medical science degree regardless. So there's really no loss to be had from that. And I would say definitely don't despair. Medicine is extremely hard to get into and a good thing about doing a bachelor degree before going into medicine is you don't put all your eggs in one basket and you really have the opportunity to expose yourself to a lot of different scientific aspects. 

So I've been asked if I had any study tips. Things work for, different things work for different people. I personally write all of my notes out by hand. I think for  science this is really helpful. I used to write them, I used to write notes on my laptop, as most people do. But I found that definitely my understanding of concepts and you are able to write down formulas, you're able to draw structures of different molecules and different parts of the human body. And it really helps your understanding of the concept that you are doing, and I definitely think that I can see a positive correlation between when I started writing all my notes by hand and then my marks getting better. Does UTS offer any early entry from preliminary results? This is a great question that I don't completely have the answer to, so I would probably talk to science.fututre@uts.edu.au, send them an email. Otherwise we have an open day coming up on the 28th and there will be definitely someone that can answer all of these questions for you. 

I just want to clarify, so a degree holds different subjects that you can take and it changes every year and you can choose which ones you want to do. Yes, so my major, which is a flexible major, everyone does the same eight subjects at the within the first year. So you do introductory physics and you do organic and physical chemistry and you do anatomy, cell biology, statistics, and I think there's something else, you do bio-complexity as well, so everyone will do those, and then if you're in a structured degree, there will be subjects that you need to take in order for you to fulfil the requirements for graduation. Otherwise, you, if you do a flexible degree you have a big list of subjects that say level two and level three, and then you can choose from those. But also if it changes every year and  new courses sometimes get added and sometimes courses not offer that yet are really dependent on what I think, well, you need the academics to be there to teach them and what the requirements of the university are right now. But, yes, it does hold different subjects, and if you do a flexible major, you're able to choose subjects across a range of disciplines as well, which I think has been, which is really interesting. I personally didn't do that. I just did medical science because I kind of always knew what I wanted to do. So, yes. 

Alissa has asked, will bio, chem or physics be more useful for medical science? Look, they're all really necessary. I definitely think that doing biology in high school helped me, in my HSC, really helps me get a really good foundational knowledge of what I would need to do at UTS. However, it's definitely a regret of mine not doing chemistry. It was quite a shock. But there are, even if you only do one of those, the programs at UTS and at most universities that can help you learn the introductory science and mathematics that you may not have done in high school. Which is one that's different. What is the difference between medical science and Doctor of Medicine? So, Doctor of Medicine means that you can practice medicine and I guess so you treat patients, you can go into a range of different specialties, whereas medical science is more science based and your options are really, I gave a list of possible career choices earlier, but to be a doctor, it's more practical, practically based, and you would become a treating doctor, as I say, as a GP would be or a surgeon. What made me want to pursue medical science, honestly, popular culture. I read a lot growing up, I watched a lot of TV. I really liked Bones and I really was fascinated in the mystery and the science behind that TV show. And, and that's something that attracts me to science overall, is I really like the investigative, investigative nature of it. 

I have time for one more question, so. It sounds as though science communication is important. Are you interested in a career in media? It's really, really important. 

I don't think that for me, I will specifically go into a career in media, however I think a lot of especially at the moment, scientists always at the forefront of the media so being able to speak clearly and communicate good ideas is not just a skill for people that want to go into policy and journalism and politics and other situations where you may, need to stand in front of a camera and talk for a while, but it's really important for everyone and it really helps communication skills. And I think that's another thing that university has taught me, is that everyone's always, you have to do a lot of group work and a lot of presentation work. And I was very, very shy. But over time, you get more exposure to different, I guess, assessments and you become, it becomes a lot easier to be able to do all of these skills. 

And I think that's all we have time for today. So thanks for joining us. The recording of this talk will be sent to everyone who registered for the event, and it will also be available on our website at the little url below. And we also have an open day coming up on the 28th and the 31st of August. So you can go to this UTS future students page and you can register for that. And there's more course info than I could provide today for you if we're really interested in having a look anyway. Thank you so much for coming today. 

Hi, everyone, welcome to the UTS Student Insight series. We're delighted to have you here to present to you during the National Science Week and hopefully inspire you towards a career in science or math. My name is Samara and I am a current PhD candidate in the Centre for Forensic Science. We also have with us today Sofia Grego, who is a current undergraduate student doing digital forensics. So we'll be sharing some of our insights and experiences and answering any questions that you might have as we go through. So before we get started, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and also the Boorooberongal of the Dharug nation upon whose ancestral lands our city, campus and research facilities now stand. I'd like to pay respect to the elders, both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for this land. A couple housekeeping things, as I mentioned, my name is Samara and I'm a PhD student. My research looks at how to estimate time since death, which I'll be going into in a little bit. And we have Sofia Grego as well in the digital forensics major of our forensic science degree. So bear that in mind as you put those questions into the Q&A box. The Q&A box can be found on your zoom border. So if you see something that looks like this, you should be able to click it and put any questions you have into there. 

We will be going through your questions at the end of the talk. If you see a question that somebody else has asked and you want to know the answer to that same question, just upvote the questions, so that way it can come to the top of our list when we come to answering them. As this is an online event, please bear with us if there are any technical issues, we'll try to get them resolved as soon as possible. If you have anything wrong on your end, usually just signing out of the call and rejoining the code fixes those problems. Otherwise, feel free to send us a message either during or after, and we will do our best to help you. Just a quick note as well, that the session is being recorded. It's just a recording of the presentation. There is no video or audio from the audience. If you have any questions or any issues with this feel free to contact us at science.future@uts.edu.au and we will answer any questions that you have. 

So a little bit about me. I'm originally from New Zealand, I was born and raised over there, and then after I finished high school, I was a little bit young and I decided that I didn't really want to go straight into university because I was afraid that I wasn't going to have the same experience that you are supposed to have when you go to university. So instead, what I did is I went on a Rotary Youth Exchange to America for a year and had to step out of my comfort zone and live with people that I never met before and had a whole bunch of exciting new experiences. And then after that, I went back to New Zealand just for a little bit and went to university over there for a year. And I decided that I wasn't happy. I really didn't like what I was doing. I found that the environment that I was in wasn't what I wanted to, where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. So I started looking at my options and I chose to come over here to Sydney and I was looking at the universities and I decided to go to UTS, mainly because they offer something called The Bachelor of Science in a flexible major. So I knew that I wanted to be in science, but I didn't know what I wanted to do in science. So for me, this was a really good option, because you can join this degree, you can pick and choose subjects from different fields. And then after, six months or after a year you can then nominate a major or transfer into the degree that you have decided they want to do so. That's what I did. 

After six months, I transferred into the Bachelor of Forensic Biology and Biomedical Science, and then as I went through that, I realised that I really loved it and I didn't want to leave yet. So I decided to do a honours degree. So I did The Bachelor of Forensic Science and tacked on and on as you on the end of that, and then again decided that I loved it so much that I just wasn't ready to leave still. So I decided to continue with my research and go into doing a PhD in forensic biology and taphonomy. So for my honours, just a little bit of a detail around what honours is, is you do you can do your standard three year undergraduate degree and then you have the option to apply to tack on an extra year. And that extra year is a research year. So you don't have the structured subjects as you would in an undergraduate degree. Instead, you choose a supervisor, you pick a research project, and then you research all of the information, all of the background information around that subject plans some experiments carry out those experiments and then write a thesis or a big book at the end. It's a really great way to introduce young people to research, and it's also a really good way for people to decide if research is what they want to do as well. So often people stop at honours and then go out into the workforce and it does give you just that little bit of an extra leg up as it's great preparation for working out in the field. 

So my project for my honours looked at validating a DNA profiling kit. So a lot of the science that's used in forensics needs to be validated in order to then present it in a courtroom. Otherwise you would take it to court and then the questions would be raised around how we know that the science is good. So that's how we know we have researchers testing it to make sure that it's good. From there, as I said, I decided to go onto my PhD and my PhD is being conducted with the Australian facility for taphonomic experimental research. So taphonomy is the study of the changes that occur in the human body after death. So these changes can be physical, they can be chemical, they can be biological. But any way that the substances in our body are altered, if we can measure those and study those, that falls under the realm of taphonomy. So we're very lucky at UTS to have the taphonomic experimental research as it is the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Outside of that, there are a handful in the United States and then one in the Netherlands, I believe. So it's really, really important, a really important site for research to be conducted in our environment. As often the research that's conducted in America isn't translatable. So we can't use what they've done in order to help us with our cases here. 

So my main focus is seeing if I can find a better way to establish time since death. So how long someone has been dead for an hour. In TV shows, often they show that they can just look at a body and go, oh, it's been about three days, but unfortunately that isn't the case. So I'm trying to see if I can use either DNA or proteins and look at how they degrade over time and see if I can correlate that back. A couple of cool things that I have got to do through this process is out of the field site. We work very closely with all of the researchers out there as it is quite a small field. And so often when there is one project going on, everyone is helping out with it. And one of those side projects that I got to help out with was a disaster victim identification project. We've run this three times across three years, and we do it in collaboration with a number of universities and also the New South Wales Police, New South Wales Health, the Defence Force, and then a bunch of forensic bodies from New Zealand as well as Victoria. So it's a massive effort to get this project running. It's also really helpful for a number of people because it allows the police to get some training into a real life scenario so that if a situation like this does occur, they are prepared and they're ready. 

It also is helpful in terms of understanding what research can be done in these areas and what we need to know better so we can actually take research samples as this is going on. And the other way that this is good is for people like New South Wales Health and other forensic bodies like that. So this is our makeshift Coroner's sort of court that we had going on here. These, I should mention, are just fake bodies that we have in here. So stuffed silicone dummies. But again, just a really great way for them to make sure that their processes are the best that they can possibly be, so that if an event like this does occur or internationally, if an event occurs, we can send people out and they will be as prepared as they can possibly be. Another cool thing that I have got to do is a lot of travel, so I've been to two conferences now. I was supposed to go to another one, but COVID happened, unfortunately. So I got to go to South Korea and I also got to go to Léon in France to present research. So when we're doing all of these experiments, you know, it's really great. We're learning all of this stuff but how do we make it make a difference. We have to go out and tell people about what we did. So the way we do that is by creating posters or presentations and presenting it to people that are interested and can understand what we're doing and potentially help us as well. 

So this is a really, really great opportunity, which is often funded by the university to network with people who could one day be your employer or who could help you and collaborate with you with different research projects that you're doing. We also at UTS have a really great relationship with the University of Lausanne, so every year the Centre for Forensic Science sends to students over to Switzerland to do a doctoral school program. So there's a number of PhD students from all over the world that come together to present their research and to do different sessions and seminars on things related to the world of forensic science. It's a great way to get some cross disciplinary information in there. So in the world of forensics, you've got biology, you've got chemistry, you've got digital forensics, as Sofia will talk to you about and interlinking those things is really important. So this is a really great way to do that. Just a couple other things before I hand over to Sofia to talk to you all. I actually lived on campus for the three years of my undergraduate degree. As I mentioned, I came from New Zealand originally. So living on campus was a really great way for me to kind of get stuck in and immerse myself into university life. 

And it is to this day where I met all of my best friends. I also am lucky to teach in two undergraduate subjects. So throughout my research degree, I have taught in two first, second and third year subjects. And again, it's a really great way for me to up my skills in terms of communication and helping the students to understand complex concepts. And it's also a great way for me to have a job that is on campus and can work around my schedule, which is really cool. The final thing I wanted to mention was I've also been able to coordinate a two week summer school program for high school students. And again, this has been really fulfilling and rewarding as it's, it provides an alternate pathway for these students to get into university. And I've been able to design a whole bunch of science subject sorry, science workshops, I guess you can call them, to present to these students and get them excited about science as well. So what I'm going to do now is stop sharing and hand over to Sofia. So Sofia is a final year Bachelor of Forensic Science student in digital forensics. She has undertaken a range of different subjects that have given her a broad range of practical skills across both digital forensics and cybersecurity. Next year, Sophia will be joining the forensic technology team at Deloitte as part of their graduate program. So I'll hand over to you now, Sofia. 

Sp hellp are everyone I'm Sofia, I'm just going to talk I'm my third year of my Bachelor of Forensic Science at UTS in the digital major. I'm just going to give a little insight into what my experience has been like so far with the major and some of the job opportunities that we get from doing the major. Sorry, so a little bit about me is I've always known that I wanted to do forensic science since I was in my early teens throughout high school though, I was introduced to software design and development, which led me to wanting to pursue a path down an IT industry opposed to doing forensic science and looking further into that. Sorry, I was kind of tossing out between doing a cybersecurity degree or the digital forensics major at UTS. Ultimately, I decided I'd do the digital forensics major as the core forensic science subjects really interested me. So throughout the course for our first year, we take a bunch of foundation IT subjects. I didn't come into the degree having much of a background in IT. So these subjects really helped me build a really solid base for the subjects that I took in my second year and the subjects that I took at the start of this year. It's not really until second year subjects that we started taking more digital forensics, specific subjects and some cybersecurity ones as well. Two of the subjects that we took in second year was digital trace and identity. And one of our assignments we had to do was we've got given a hard drive and we had to investigate the hard drive to recover hidden data and information and pictures and stuff like that from it. 

And one of the other really cool tasks we got to do was find the digital fingerprint of a digital camera and analyse it against a bunch of images to identify which image had been taken by that camera, which I found very exciting. So in our third year, we got some free electives. I had planned on going to George Mason University over in the US for an exchange. Unfortunately, due to COVID though, that didn't end up happening. So I ended up taking some cyber security electives at UTS. So when it comes to career opportunities through the digital major, there's kind of like four main parts you can go through the more traditional forensic analysis, which is used more so for like criminal courts and then there's e-discovery and intrusion detection. The nice part about the digital major is that we cover all of these topics pretty in depth as it crosses the board with cyber security as well. Sorry, and then when it comes to internships and graduate opportunities, there's two main different paths that you can kind of go down the government path, which would be working traditionally for the ASIO or the AFP and the ADF or what I classify as the more corporate roles which are through, there's the big four banks and then the accounting industries as well. In particular Deloitte, KordaMentha and KPMG offer the digital forensics, specific internships and grad opportunities. 

But with the skills we get through our digital major, it's also applicable to any of the cyber security internships that are available. And there's quite a lot of them. For me personally, I'm starting my grad job at Deloitte next year after I graduate. It's in discovery and data management within the forensic technology team. The focuses and kind of stuff that we do for Deloitte is focus on security incidents and infringements of intellectual property and trade secrets, which is sort of like looking into corporate espionage and stuff like that. One of the really interesting things about my grad program is that my buddy is actually a past digital forensics student at UTS, so she's going to be helping me throughout my first year of my grad program. And then just to end things off, some of my little tips and tricks for if you do decide to do a digital major would be to join the forensic science and cybersecurity societies. They both have a lot of connections to industry and there's a lot of unique experiences that they offer as you're doing it and then doing the digital major, there is very few of us that do it. I know in my area I think there's less than 15 of us. So definitely create connections with the other students that are doing it across the board and across different years. 

Cool, thank you, Sofia. So just a quick reminder to put all your questions into the Q&A box so that we can answer them for you. If you have something specific for either Sofia or myself. If you could tack our name onto it so we can make sure that you're getting the answer from the person that you want to answer the question. The first question that we have, the most upvoted question that we have is do you need to pursue a graduate degree to work in forensics? What job opportunities are there for a bachelor's degree? So I would say that that is probably a little bit of a multifaceted question. There are many different areas of forensics that you can go into. Some of them require a tertiary degree and some of them don't require a tertiary degree. Having said that, you are always going to give yourself a leg up on people that that haven't studied tertiary, if you do. If you are wanting to go into the police and do a traditional, I guess, general duties role and then see if you can work your way through to forensics that way you can do that. But I do know that it requires two years of general duties in the police force before you can do that. And then other than that, if you if you want a lab role, if you want to sort of streamline your pathway to a particular particular area of forensic science, whether that be looking at drugs and toxicology. So how the drugs work in the body or if you want to go down the digital like Sofia has chosen to do, then it would be probably a little bit more difficult to do that without having studied a bachelor's degree in those areas. Is there anything you want to add to that Sofia? 

No, I think you covered that. 

The next one we have is how hard was it to apply and be accepted into the course? You want to take that? 

For me personally, I got in through ATAR and bonus points at the end of year 12. I guess it kind of depends there's a lot of pathways into it as well. 

Yeah, it's a hard question to answer. I'd probably add on to that to bear in mind that the I forget what the what it's called, I think it's called selection rank number that's applied to a particular degree is based off of the popularity of that degree. So that ATAR requirement is based off of the the lowest ATAR that was accepted the previous year. So if it's a really popular degree and you've got lots of people, then they pick from the top down and so the ATAR will be higher. That is not a representative of how hard the degree is. It's just a representative of its popularity. The other thing I'll say is if you if you're worried about things like that, there's always different pathways that you can take, whether that be through bonus points, like you said you were able to to get when you applied or doing something like what I did, where you go through the flexible science major and then transfer after six months or a year, there's always a way to do to do what you want to do. The next question is forensics a competitive career. Do you want to answer that? 

I mean, I'd have to say yes in a sense that one that. There are, I'm really bad at answering questions. I don't know, you go. 

I was just going to say, I think it's probably a hard one to answer, maybe because you got a job straight away. So in that sense, like if you're anything to go by then that this if you're coming out skilled, then there will be a job for you, which is really good. Depending on the area that you want to go into in forensics, there is I guess it can be more popular. For instance, I know if you want to be a scene or crime officer, then that is quite a popular thing to do. But again, that's something that you actually have to join the police for. If you want to do something in a lab or something like what I'm doing with taphonomy, then you end up kind of becoming so skilled in a particular area that it becomes less and less competitive because people, there are not as many people who are skilled in the things that you are skilled in. Hopefully that answers your question. The next one we have what internship work experience opportunities are available? So you can undertake internships that count towards credit points in any of the degrees, the science degrees at UTS. Those internships can be internal, so working with a researcher at the university or they can be external as well. And we have a number of partnerships with New South Wales police, with New South Wales Health as well. So Forensic Analytical Science Services. And then I think probably these days we have a lot of partnerships with digital people. I'm not sure about that, Sofia, if you can answer that. 

I think from the digital perspective, it's more so, you kind of have to look for them yourself. There's no really specific ones that are offered through UTS, but there's quite a few. 

I think a lot of the big four in accounting, KPMG and the banks and stuff, they're always taking internship students. And it will be a pretty easy, straightforward thing to do to apply for an internship with those people. The great thing about here is that we do have those relationships though. So things like UTS careers actually will help you, help facilitate you through a the internship application process to help you get the internship that you want. Which university is best for forensic courses? I believe that, there are maybe only two or three in Australia that offer forensic courses, but the beauty of UTS is the academics that we have, honestly, the academics that we have are awesome. And they are some of the top academics in the world. For instance, the head of the Centre for Forensic Science and the man who started the Centre for Forensic Science here at UTS Claude Roux is actually currently the president of the International Association for Forensic Science. So he has a large network. He's able to have to have established us a really good partnership with the University of Lausanne, who is also one of the big forensic universities out there in the world. But it just means that we get some really top tier education and we also are exposed to a lot of great partnerships as well. How are you assessed/graded in university and how does your final mark affect you? Do you want to answer that one> 

So most of it's, well from my experience, it's been a combination of assignments and final exams. I guess it kind of depends on like, I don't know, how is your final mark affect you? I feel like that's kind of a difficult one. I mean, personally, when I applied to my grad role, they didn't look at what my, my GPA or my WAM they were more interested in just like the courses I took and what I knew. 

Yeah, yeah, I'd say that the, in terms of assessment at university, a lot of the time I get questions doing these talks about how hard it is and if it's really difficult, how much studying you have to do. But the reality of, I think any tertiary degree, whether it's in science or another field, is that the content that you learn often isn't hard because you, you take steppingstones to learn what you what you learn. It's more about the fact that your, your tertiary study is dependent on you. So you don't have the same structure that you do in high school. You don't have someone saying, I'm going to give you detention if you don't do your homework. That responsibility becomes your responsibility to manage what you're doing, to make sure that you're handing in the assignments when you have to hand them in and stuff like that. And then in terms of your your final mark, it's like, yeah, it's really dependent on, you know, I guess who you're applying to work for a lot of the time. I think the the people that are employing you are more interested in who you are and how you're going to contribute to the role rather than the specific GPA that you got at university. 

All right, I think that may be all we have time for if we didn't get around to your question, I'm very sorry. Hopefully we'll be able to answer some of your questions at something like open day or through online ask UTS platform if it was UTS related. To wrap things up. So thank you all for joining us. And again, I'm really sorry if we weren't able to answer your question. I did try to go through as many as possible. A recording of this talk is going to be sent to everyone who registered for this event. And it's also going to be made available on this website here. If you want to note down that URL. Otherwise, you can check course info and also register for open day at our UTS website. Now, open day for this year is on the 28th and 31st of August. And oftentimes there are a bunch of us students floating around on open day and we'll be there to answer your questions then too, if you didn't get it answered today. So thank you again for joining us and hopefully we'll see you soon.