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I arrived in Swansea in October 2007 to do an MSc in Environmental Dynamics and Climate Change. It was a big step, since I come from a different education system and background. I did Physics in Spain and the seven years I spent on it were purely theoretical. The MSc opened my mind to new parts of science. Although Physics is the base for all the mechanisms in the nature, the hard part is applying the knowledge to something less abstract. That is when I started to be quite enthusiastic about glaciology. I realised how important it is to study the cryosphere and to understand all the processes that drive glacier dynamics, and obviously all the physics and maths are involved there. In 2009 I started a PhD within the Glaciology group, here at Swansea, about Volume changes of the Greenland Ice Sheet from Satellite and Ground-based Measurements, and for me is a challenge. I feel really comfortable with all the people that work here and I am very grateful for this opportunity. Moreover I will have the opportunity of travelling to the Arctic, which will complement the computer work I develop everyday on my desk. Living in Swansea has been a great experience for me. I am meeting people from other cultures and that allows me to learn about other customs and to share mine.
I originally came to Swansea University to study for a BSc in Geography. Although this course covered a wide range of both human and physical topics that were all very interesting and provided a broad spectrum of skills from GIS and remote sensing to environmental modelling, my main interest was in the physical aspects. I graduated in 2007 with a 1st Class BSc (Hons) in Geography and wanted to continue my studies into the field of climate change. I decided that the MSc in Environmental Dynamics and Climate Change would be an appropriate route to take in order to pursue this field. The MSc, focused on many characteristics of the global environment, like impacts on ecosystems, and how the varying processes associated with climate change can be monitored, measured and modelled. This choice of topics was complimented by the fact that the modules were run by lecturers working at the cutting-edge of global environmental change. The culmination of what I learned over the course of the year was put into practice with the dissertation, which allowed me to focus on an area of particular interest. The group of friends that I had on the course were brilliant and I will take away a lot of fond memories of our time together at Swansea. Now, after finishing the MSc I have a job working for the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. My role is a scientific and technical research assistant and although I did not study oceanography in university, I am using the transferable skills that I acquired from the MSc to monitor and measure global ocean circulation. This involves a lot of data analysis and also I am helping to organise two research cruises which will look at the ocean structure and state of ocean circulation via properties such as temperature, salinity and oxygen content of different water masses. The first cruise will run from Punta Arenas on the Southern tip of Chile across the Drake Passage to the West Antarctic Peninsula and back up to Uruguay. The second cruise will involve taking a transect of the South Atlantic Ocean between Uruguay and Namibia. I could not have hoped for a better starting job and I feel that the MSc in Environmental Dynamics and Climate Change prepared me well for this by giving me a good foundation from which to progress.
