Professional Development Plan

I am applying to study animal behavior and welfare as I understand it to be a fast growing and hugely exciting field, not Just in it’s scope and applications within the more traditional animal industries, but also in it’s implications for ecology and the human animal experience. My particular area of interest is in theology, and I am gripped by the idea of ‘studying an animal’s behavior through the process of

Interviewing it in it’s own language’ as It surely has the possibility to open up the natural world in a completely different way. I have recently been enjoying a series of lectures on ‘youth’ given at Stanford University by Robert Spooky, covering some of the many fascinating areas within this deadlines. Although I have not had an enormous amount of experience with a wide range of animals, I have always kept domestic pets,and currently share my home with two dogs who are endlessly fascinating!

I enjoyed a six month volunteering post at SST Herbage’s City Farm In my mild twenties, and learned to work competently with goats. I have helped my father In law with his aviary birds over the last eleven years, and am also a useful extra pair of hands at my mother in law’s stables when needed.

My previous educational experience after G. C. S. Sees includes a year of ‘A’ level psychology and a further full time period of study completing an access course in ‘Health and Life Sciences’.

I was accepted at The university of Leeds to study Physiology and, although my personal circumstances changed and I was unable to continue beyond my first year, I remain fascinated by the ‘Life Sciences’.

Whilst I have not been in a structured educational setting for a number of years, I believe that my wider life experience has given me a strong and sustainable motivation to learn. I have a good understanding of my abilities and am very driven to develop my intellectual life through formal study.