Classes

This is a short post that might be boring for most of you, but for those of who are curious to know a little about what I am actually doing academically this semester: here is a little rundown! The classes I am taking this semester are Wildlife Management, Wildlife Ecology, Economic Policy and Socioeconomic values, Directed Research, and Swahili and East African Culture (yes, I am taking classes in Swahili). My professors are very welcoming and come from all sorts of backgrounds with awesome research credentials. My wildlife management professor, Dr. Kiffner, is originally from Germany and has done research on the population dynamics of lions and hyenas in Tanzania, as well as has some current projects that we will be apart of. My environmental policy professor, John Mwamhanga, a native to Tanzania, has been involved in natural resource management in the parks of Tanzania for decades and takes a very interesting approach to the integration of policy into conservation. My wildlife ecology professor, Dr. Kioko, is originally from Kenya and also has a very accomplished research background. Then there is my Kiswahili professor, Aziz, who loves teaching us the language. I have already learned so much in just a week that I know I am going to walk away from this experience with some really great skills for working in wildlife management and conservation.

Each SFS program has an ongoing case study that drives the entire structure of the program. As part of the wildlife conservation and management program, our case study involves focusing on the Tarangire-Manyara and Serengeti ecosystems that we are sandwiched in between. Our goal for the semester is to find ways that changes in land use and resource availability in the Tarangire-Manyara ecosystem can be managed to foster the well being of local communities while still promoting biodiversity and safeguarding conservation. Our classes will provide us with the information we need to work on this question for the first half of the semester, and the second half of the semester we will be splitting into a couple different directed research projects that look at various aspects of our case study. At the very end of the semester we present these findings to the local community, as well as big leaders in management in Tanzania. Our particular semester is in the last year of the five-year case study, which has been compiling all the work of SFS students for the last five years to actually make a difference in the conservation of species in Tanzania. I am super excited for what’s to come and my first real intensive research experience!