A General Introduction to Me, Edinburgh and Societies

Hello, I'm Alex, and this is my blog. 

I am a student ambassador for the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine (CMVM) at the University of Edinburgh, one thing I do in this role is update this blog (at least) once every month with posts about my research and life as a student here.

I start my project on 1st October so this post is largely going to be about me and Edinburgh as I know it so far.

I was born in Nottingham where I spent the first 18 years of my education, after cruising through secondary school and college, I applied to do - and was rejected for - medicine; it turns out this was one of the best things that could have happened to me since it was whilst I studied BSc Microbiology at the University of Leeds (2009-2012) that I got really passionate about science.
My excitement about the science I was doing and the people I was meeting meant that I missed out on engaging with the wide array of groups and societies that universities have to offer. Fortunately, studying Edinburgh will give me the chance to get involved with societies and continue doing the science I enjoy.

I am a humanist, feminist vegetarian who enjoys science, comedy, cooking, running, politics, philosophy and computer games. I couldn't really be in a better city for all these things.
After receiving my offer to study here, I checked out the societies available from Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA), made a list of those that seemed interesting and checked out a few their events during Freshers week.

The Humanist Society arrange events relating to faith, science and reason and have a weekly meet-up at the Pleasance Bar. I met up a few members during the last week of the Fringe Festival who were lovely enough to welcome a total stranger (who claimed he would be starting a PhD soon) into the fold for drinks and discussion.

The Feminist Society run campaigns and have discussions relating to gender equality. Whilst their introductory tea & coffee session was a little awkward (get a bunch of freshers in a cramped space see what happens...), everyone was very friendly and I expect things will pick up as their first campaign begins, FemSoc vs Banter aims to challenge those "harmless" instances of sexism we are exposed to day-to-day.
Beyond FemSoc, Edinburgh has a vibrant feminist community as I discovered on the weekend following Freshers week at an event called "Pussy Whipped - a wee queer-feminist festival" which, over 2 nights, hosted a range of punk rock, alternative and electro bands who were mostly LGBTQ or female.

Furthering the interesting feminist talk, The Debates Union hosted a debate entitled "This house would ban page 3 girls". It was fun to see two experienced debaters from the university thrashing a Member of the Scottish Parliament and a woman who campaigned on the topic, though it was a shame they didn't really believe in their side of the argument (as we learned later).

The Vegetarian Society arranged a picnic in the Meadows and once we found them (how do you spot a group of vegetarians in very large field?), we had a lovely time eating humous and meeting a wide variety of people.
On the subject on delicious foody people, I saw the Hearty Squirrel Food Cooperative in the fresher's fair but didn't get a chance to chat. This group of (what I assume are) lovely people volunteer to provide cheaper, tastier and more ethically-sourced food for students to buy. I have high expectations after using the excellent food co-op at Leeds Uni.

EUSci do a magazine, website and podcast about science, I couldn't find them at freshers fair but the articles on their website and the chat on their podcast were of great quality and I'm excited to get involved with them. They only publish their magazine a few times a year but at least that gives me time to find a topic for an article.
A more regular student publication is The Student, which has a wider focus (being a newspaper, not a science mag). Writing for student newspaper would be exciting enough but on top of that it turns out they were also founded by Robert Louis Stevenson!

So that's the societies I'm really curious about, but there's a load more on offer. I have one last topic before I publish this post and that is the twitter feed to the right of this post, I'm not sure what I'll be doing with it or even whether I plan to keep it. On the plus side, minute by minute updates may give an interesting perspective especially at times like conferences; additionally twitter allows for interesting communication with many groups and individuals (such as EUSci). On the minus side, there are serious issues around confidentiality and safety (since I may be talking about work with animals). It's likely that there wont be many posts there until I've had a chance to talk it over with my supervisor.

For the next post in a couple of weeks, I'll be talking about Blue-Ear Pig Disease and maybe getting into the aims of my PhD project.