I desperately wish I had some more time to write this post when I wasn’t jet lagged and sick, because I have so much to say about this class. Firstly, to address the prompt directly, the biggest thing I noticed is how much land is shared between wildlife and grazing herds of domestic animals. Particularly with our camera traps, there was a ton of overlap between the land used by nomadic herders and wildlife like Giraffes and Zebras. And land use, especially contemporary, has a massive potential to impact the charismatic wildlife that we saw throughout the trip. And even from a paleoecological perspective, we were able to see how landscapes — open or closed — impact predator competition and behavior. Assuming this is still the case, human development and land use has the potential to directly impact those behaviours as well as they shift the landscape that wildlife live on.
I could go on. I wish I could go on. But I genuinely lack the energy, and want to spend what I have left talking about what this course has meant to me. This was my last class as an undergraduate, and I genuinely cannot think of a better way to end it off. Now, it was obviously tough in parts — getting sick was never a part of my plan and evidently it’s something I’m still needing to sort out. But despite that, I am so incredibly grateful for this opportunity. Being able to experience so much first hand has has a much, much greater impact on my learning than I ever could have imagined. None of the information felt forced, I never felt like I had to crack open a book to understand what was going on around me, and yet I did understand.
And I can’t even begin to list all of the things that will stick with me. I learned countless things about African ecology and paleoecology. For example, I will forever be able to tell the difference between Equus and Hipparion teeth, and any time I watch planet earth from now on I’ll be on the lookout for various Canid species. And on top of that, I learned a good bit about myself as well, especially how much I enjoy learning and experiencing new things with people who are as excited about it as I am. I’ve been very lucky to be able to do more travelling than I ever could have imagined during my time at Rice, but never have I been so lucky to experience it with such an enthusiastic group of people. I could not have asked for better, and I’m so glad that this is how I’m ending off my time at Rice.
A lot of these blogs have been fairly tongue in cheek — if you’re reading this Mr. President, I hope you were at least a bit entertained — but everything I have said here is completely genuine. I’m going to carry this experience with me for the rest of my life, and I’m so thankful for everyone who made it possible.
Signing off for the last time x
Marlo
