I successfully passed my last exam which funny enough was from the previous year. The dreaded botany. It wasn't the theory that was giving me nightmares but the practical exam. It was split into three parts:
1. Algae, Moss, Fern, Lichens
For passing the first one you had to recognize 8 slides under microscope and 2 macro samples.
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| Diatoms |
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| Green algae (Volvox) |
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| Dinoflagellata (Ceratinum) |
Those who passed were allowed to take the second part which consisted of 10 tree leaves (out of 80 we had to know) that we have to correctly name.
3. Flowering plants
Those who passed finally got to take the most difficult one: naming three random plants we never studied before using the incredible complicated key.
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| Three-toothed orchid (Orchis tridentata) |
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| Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) |
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| Hacquetia epipactis |
If you failed any of those you were back at the beginning. So basically it was like playing an annoying game withouth the opinion of autosave.
With the last exam I finished my BSC program. I was accepted into MSC program: Ecology and Biodiversity:) Its been huge fun so far. I believe we have so much more fun than our former classmates who decided to take Physiology and Structural Biology (no field work at all for them!). Plus our subjects are much more fun, not to mention the professors or assistants.
I am already looking forward to the whole month and a half of field days during the summer. It is going to be awesome;)
I will probably have different oppinion in the summer when I'll be trying to juggle all the field work, exams and articles that should have been written a month ago.
Btw there is a grasshopper hidden on one of the pictures;) Lets see how many of you can find it!
