Came for the food, stayed for the talk

This semester’s second bioBREAKFAST was held at UNIS on Friday March 22nd. After having heaps of trouble finding PhD and master students to present for the first bioBREAKFAST, and it being announced only on a three day notice, we had extra big expectations this Friday morning.

This time, we had an easier time finding people to present – and we actually had three-four people who were available to talk at some point. The first person we brought in was Eike Stübner from the Department of Arctic Biology. For the first bioBREAKFAST, a lot of geology students showed up, so we decided to get a person from the Geology department to talk, as a treat to these enthusiastic geology students. Therefore, we brought in Malte Jochmann as well. This time, we announced the breakfast one week in advance – everything was in place for this bioBREAKFAST to be one for the history books.

After some “professional” marketing on Facebook, we had over 50 people signed up, and this made shopping a little challenging – because how much food do 50 people actually eat for breakfast? I think we ended up buying just the perfect amount.

When Friday March, 22nd finally was upon us, we were very prepared, and excited to see how many people would actually show up. Would it be 30, 40, or maybe 50? We were very pleased to see that the students did not disappoint. Why would they – they are UNIS-students after all. Over 50 people showed up in Lassegrotta. Of these 50+ students, over half of them studied geology. Biology was also well represented, but it was nice to see that even a good group of geophysics and technology students was present. It was also great that not only bachelor students showed up. Master students, and even PhD students were there, so this shows that there is no doubt that bioBREAKFAST has a wide audience at UNIS. It was also great to see a lot of people from the first bioBREAKFAST of the semester returning, this shows that it was something they enjoyed.

We got two great presentations from Eike and Malte about their educational history, and what lead them to where they are today. The audience was paying attention to the presentations while eating their breakfast, and both Eike and Malte had very interesting backgrounds. They also came with great advice to us students – not just in our studies, but also in life in general. As an example, I heard multiple people discussing that they wanted to do as Eike, and take half a year off to travel to be in the nature (showing that the journal Nature is not the only nature aspiring scientists wants to be in).

The breakfast was finished off with questions, where people kept asking questions until we had to end the séance for cleaning. While cleaning up after both this and the last bioBREAKFAST, we got very positive feedback. One of these comments was “I came for the food, but stayed for the talk” which was probably the most catchy comment. It was also very nice to hear that even PhD-students think these seminars are great learning, and wonder when the next one will be. With a turn-up like this, and with that much positive feedback, it is not difficult to say that this was a successful and rewarding bioBREAKFAST for everyone involved. At last, we wish to – again – thank Eike and Malte for taking the time to join bioBREAKFAST this Friday, and for making the breakfast very interesting.

Author: Ørjan Vabø, UNIS student representative