Students get an in-depth look into the forensic science field thanks to informative guest lectures

Students from the Forensic Investigation programme have had the chance to apply their knowledge and think about life after university, thanks to two guest lectures.

For those interested in the criminal side of forensic science, students were treated to an informative guest lecture from Detective Constable Marc Shevlin and Detective Sergeant Andy Roy (Specialist Crime Division, Police Service of Scotland) on Thursday 7 March. The detectives delivered the lecture ‘Controlled drugs and the law: A Scottish perspective’ which included an overview of drug trends and law surrounding Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

During the lecture, students also got to hear about how their roles heavily relied on laboratory and forensic testing.

One of the lecture attendees was final year Forensic Investigation student Chelsea Diamond, who felt that the lecture cemented her interest in pursuing a career with the police.

“It was really interesting to see the different aspects that you can go into with the police, especially how people are able to work their way up. I’m really interested in working with the police now so it was good to hear about it in an in-depth way.” Explained Chelsea.

Two weeks later, students had the opportunity to hear from Technical Manager Tom Aspray at Environment Reclamation Services Ltd (ERS), who discussed his role and their work in environmental remediation.

Attending the lecture was MSc Environmental Forensic Analysis students Brandon Rollo, Hollie Deane and Rachel McClung, who all had the opportunity to analyse samples provided by ERS.

Rachel explained: “It was our first time getting to work with real samples. We’ve had the opportunity to test soil samples before, but the aim of that was to do heavy metal extraction. With this particular sample, it was our first time getting to try plastic extraction.

We also managed to find glass and other fibers in the sample, so it was a really useful learning experience. Now nearing the end of the degree, we’ve had the chance to analyse organic and heavy metal materials, but this task gave us the experience of extracting something different so we’ve now learned some new techniques.”

Forensic Investigation student Carla Irvin understands the benefits of attending guest lectures and wants to encourage students from across the university to take up the opportunity when they get the chance. She said: “I think the main benefit of the lectures was that the guests were people with real experience in the fields that a lot of us want to enter after university.

Not that the lecturers don’t have experience, but it was really helpful to hear the specifics about certain occupations and the processes that they carry out. It helped us a lot to learn what they experience daily, compared to the usual applied knowledge in most of our lectures.”

Chelsea added: “For students who haven’t attended  a guest lecture before, its just a really good way of getting to hear from someone that’s already in an area of work that could come as a result of doing our degree.

It gives you the chance to hear real experiences from someone working in the industry and what they’ve been able to achieve.”

By Rachael McAlonan

Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media