Say hello to the University of Stirling's latest graduate! After four years and a lot of hard work, I have somehow managed to receive a BSc in Psychology with first class honours! 

Tuesday evening, I zipped through on the train from Edinburgh to Stirling after work (still feels strange to say that!) and met my family at the station. I got a blessed night in a hotel - a stark change from the student halls I had been staying in temporarily - and a free breakfast the next morning before we all piled into the car and drove to campus. 

It was a lovely day, despite the splattering of rain towards the end and the fact that the entire ceremony reminded me of a school assembly... I was 'doffed' by none other than James Naughtie (it was bizarre putting a face to the voice that lilted out of our kitchen radio as I powered through the International Baccalaureate) and the keynote speaker was Dr Rita Colwell who was being given an honorary degree for her contributions to marine biotechnology and and environmental microbiology. Super interesting woman, very glad I had the opportunity to hear her speak.

Above all else, it was so wonderful to see all my friends again! I brought my 'goodbye book' - the notebook I've had at every leaving day and graduation I've had since I was 10 - and received some very lovely and heartfelt messages. Everyone was in good spirits and overall it was a brilliant day!

Time for some gratuitous photos, I think:

Hopefully we can manage Adult Life better than our robes... although me tangled in a robe with a glass of prosecco isn't changing any time soon
Doffed

The 'Rents
With Mama

With the Sibling
When I wrote In 10: Fourth Year, I didn't know whether I would be in England or Scotland, if I'd have a job or if I'd still be applying for them... All I really knew was that I really didn't want to leave Scotland. At all. I was predicting getting very emotional at graduation but having crossed the "so what are your plans after uni?" bridge by the time graduation came around, I was on much firmer footing  and therefore wasn't a teary mess... 

That's not to say I'm not sad to be leaving Stirling! I've made some amazing memories here and met lifelong friends. I'll miss orienting myself using the Wallace Monument, quiet walks around the loch to clear my head and the incredibly distracting view of Dumyat from the psychology labs...

So here's to four freshers weeks, 22 exams and approximately 60,000 words in essays. To ASH, Wallace Street, Haultain Street, Pendreich Way and Willow Court. To studying in two of the most beautiful countries in the world and climbing to the roof of Africa. To moral support, face paint, sea monkeys, climbing into buildings through windows, roast dinners at midnight, ceilidhs, pub crawls, adventures in the snow, impromptu road trips, hikes to the viewpoint, bonfire nights, open mics, zoo trips, barbecues, Game of Thrones viewings, pumpkin carving, flat banquets, and last but not least, a cardboard cutout of Zac Efron.

Time passes – Gardeners die – They are remembered
1 - Into the Woods
2 - October
3 - Bonfire Night
4 - Flat Christmas
5 - Dissertation Lab
6 - 'Adventure'
8 - Balquhidder and Loch Voil
8 - April Showers?

9 - Bluebells in the Hermitage Wood


10 - Riverside

At the risk of becoming far too emotional (I'll save that for the graduation post!), I'll try to keep things brief! This year has flown by faster than any other academic year in my memory. I've lived with wonderful people, conducted my own psychology experiment, written a hefty dissertation, and somehow still found the time to explore new parts of Scotland. 

My room is all packed into boxes ready to be loaded into the car and it hasn't quite hit me that I won't be returning to this beautiful campus in September. I won't have another year of attempting to navigate the labyrinth of Cottrell, the weekly pub quizzes at the union, or narrowly avoiding an altercation with the swans when walking to the Atrium... 

All I'll say is people better watch out at graduation. There will be enough bittersweet tears to create Loch Airthrey three times over. ;)

It's April and the weather is all over the place. When I had this post in mind, I thought I was going to be welcoming the return of the sunshine but this week it has decided to snow. It's late April and it's snowing. If that isn't a sign of climate change, I don't know what is. 

Regardless, last week my flat had a lovely picnic in the sunshine. We took a walk down from our halls and round the loch, passing by this nesting swan. The groundskeepers have set up a protective fence as the nest is very close to the path so the mamma swan is safe (and more importantly, so are we...)


Up on top of the hill, we sat to appreciate the sunshine and fresh air and eat nice food. April is a month I enjoy a lot due to its warmth (usually..) and a distinct lack of grass pollen that has me sneezing for most of May and into June... 


This little picnic turned into my first time geocaching! For those who don't know, geocaching is like a modern day treasure hunt. You download an app to your phone, turn on your GPS and it directs you towards the area where the cache is located. Once you're close enough, you have to scramble around and look for the cache! We successfully found the Blue Whale, logged our success in the little blue book and left something blue, as instructed! 


Other than this nice afternoon, this month has mainly been finishing up final bits and pieces for my undergraduate degree, so not a lot has happened. It's hard to believe I've handed in my last assignment now. Rather anticlimactically too, via online submission. After receiving my TurnItIn receipt, I sat back and had to marvel at how fast these past four years have gone. All I have to do now is turn up to graduation in June. It feels so strange. 


Side note: I was featured by the University of Stirling's student newspaper, The Brig! A big thank you to them. The article displays some of my favourite photos that I've taken (some of which aren't on the blog). 
In a departure from my usual posts, I can finally talk about my dissertation. Finally. I didn't like that in my last few posts I had to be so cryptic about what I was up to. That was partly due to the fact that some people who read my blog I needed as participants but mainly because I knew I wanted to devote a whole post to the project. I'm going to try to make a considered effort not to focus on how quickly the past six months have flown by and instead explain what I've been doing that has caused me to neglect this blog so terribly!

Everyone writes a thesis at the end of their degree but psychologists are asked to run our own experiment. Our thesis takes the form of a lab report on steroids. I was lucky enough to be given my first choice which fell under the realm of evolutionary psychology and linked two theories around human sense of smell.

Getting a little technical now, the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a genetic marker that helps with immune response. It comes in many different types and varies from person to person - this variation is advertised in body odour. If you're looking to have strong and healthy children, it makes sense to choose a mate who has different MHC genes than yourself, because your kids will be more likely to fight off a greater range of diseases. This is called disassortative mating. Unusually, the preference for a partner with opposite MHC genes is switched when a woman takes hormonal contraception like the pill.

There's another theory that states that the fragrances we like are related to the MHC. We like particular fragrances because they reflect and help advertise the MHC cues in our body odour to other people (i.e. potential mates). The idea behind my study was to find evidence for a link between these two theories.


I had couples in heterosexual relationships come to the lab (extremely high tech, as you can see) to fill out some questionnaires and then smell some smells! Participants completed some forms, a smell identification test, and then went on to smell some accords, which are ingredients that make up perfumes. Participants rated them out of 10 and ranked them in order of how much they'd like to wear them and how much they'd like their partner to wear them. I then compared their results with their partners and also looked at overall trends across gender and contraceptive choice.

7, 957 words, 72 references, 47 pages, and 155 days later, I submitted my findings!


As you might suspect, hardly anything was significant. I didn't find a strong correlation between couples preferring the opposite fragrances if they were using non-hormonal contraception, nor did I find a strong correlation between couples preferring the same fragrances if they were using hormonal contraception. Disappointing but not unexpected. It made for a lengthy discussion about why my findings don't support the current literature, which is always a good thing in science.

I did however find a significant difference in ratings for the vanilla-scented accord. Women not using hormonal contraception prefered the smell by far compared to both women on hormonal contraception and men. It's a completely novel finding and there's been very little research into vanilla so at least I've got that going for me! Not 100% sure what will be done with it or its significance for wider research but at least I discovered something new!

The main thing, however, is that my dissertation is over and done with! Contrary to popular belief, I did actually enjoy writing my dissertation and I can put that down to two things: the topic and lots of planning. Firstly, I have always had an interest in evolutionary psychology and contraception effects so the past semester and a bit were far more tolerable than if I had been researching into something like cognition. Secondly, I cannot stress the importance of organisation enough. You're far more likely to stay sane when you've planned to write your 8000 words leisurely over the course of a few weeks as opposed to everything in one caffeine-fueled weekend of pain and suffering. I owe a lot to the Bullet Journal system for keeping my life together too (even if it has continued to enable my obsession with stationery).

If you've made it to the end of this post, thank you! I know it's a total departure from my usual posts and I promise to get back to posting about my misadventuring soon! I'll wrap up this unreasonable wall of text with the same quote I used in my acknowledgements:

“A flower’s fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile, available, and desirable. Its smell reminds us in vestigial ways of fertility, vigour, life force, all the optimism, expectancy, and passionate bloom of youth. We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages, we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire.”
– Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses
1 - Return to Loch Katrine

Second Year from The Travelling Quill on 8tracks Radio.

It's been an incredible long time since I've done a playlist! As with first year's playlist, I am totally packed (nope), ready to leave my flat (ha) and about to set off on the long journey back to London (unfortunately true yet again).


Two nights left in halls and I'm busy attempting to pack so here's a short post: my first year at Stirling University in 10 photos!

1 - Pranks in Halls
I seriously lucked out with my choice of university. 300 acres of incredible park and woodland at the foot of the Ochil Hills and Abbey Craig (upon which sits the Wallace Monument). As if this wasn't enough, the campus also has a loch and a castle.

Halls and Airthrey Loch

Psychology research aside, the campus was a huge selling point in me picking Stirling as my university. I wanted to get away to somewhere that was distinctly not London.