A little bit about myself

My name is Aisling (pronounced "ash-ling") and I am a 20 year old girl working towards my B.S. in agroecology with a minor in entomology. I hope to one day become an entomologist - possibly a forensic entomologist. My parents are from Ireland but, I was mainly raised just outside New York City. I moved to Pittsburgh when I was in high school and after I graduated high school, I moved to State College, PA to attend college at Penn State.

I live off campus in an apartment with my boyfriend, Jeremiah and our 2 year old catahoula leopard dog named Aussie, our 8 month old calico cat named Hazel and our 2 tarantulas. One tarantula, Chrissy is a Chilean rose hair tarantula that I've had for about 10 years. The other tarantula is a young adult Pink Toe tarantula. We haven't named this tarantula yet. Name suggestions are appreciated!

Our doggy, Aussie

I am a big animal lover and hope to become a tarantula collector and possibly a breeder as a hobby. My boyfriend and I intend to adopt more animals when we have the time, space and income to do so. We also hope to one day run my own animal rescue. Our dog, Aussie was rescued from a bad situation in Kentucky and we wouldn't be a family without him! He is a wonderful dog and we want to help other dogs and cats who are in similar situations that our dog had once faced. We adopted our cat Hazel from a family out by the airport. Hazel's mother was a stray. I adopted Chrissy many years ago when I was still in junior high school as part of my science fair experiment. We recently adopted the new tarantula from Petco and so far the tarantula is fairly tame and a beautiful specimen to look at.

My boyfriend, Jeremiah

My boyfriend and I met at a tattoo shop about a year ago and we have been inseparable ever since. In a few years when I am finished with atleast my undergraduate degree, we plan to get married. We intend to have successful careers, have a nice home, and raise a family. We are constantly trying to think about the long term goals to motivate us in the moment.

I created this blog to help motivate myself through college. Using this blog, I can proudly display what I have achieved in my academic career and receive additional support to achieve my goals in life. Although my blog is primarily based on my experiences as a college student in entomology, I will also talk about non-science topics..cooking, cultural events, charities, movies, and so on. I hope you all enjoy my blog!

Cheers

Back in college!

Last week I re-enrolled back into college at Penn State - University park. Due to a lot stressful of things going on in my life, I had to withdraw from college last spring semester and took a semester off in the fall. Now that I am back on track, I am very excited about school! In the time spent away from school, I re focused myself and found the correct major. If you can't tell by the title of this blog, I want to become an entomologist. Unfortunately, there are only about a dozen or so colleges in the country that offer an undergraduate major in entomology. Penn State has a renowned entomology department. However, the undergraduate entomology program was disbanded a few years ago when only a small number of students actually majored in it. I've spent the last couple years trying to find the right major that would best suit me for a graduate program in entomology. I looked at biomedical engineering, forensic science, biology, and agricultural science majors before an agronomy professor suggested I look into a major in agroecology.

Agroecology is the study between different organisms and their environment. I had begun an agroecology class and really enjoyed it. Over fall semester, I began to look further into the major and realized it was a great fit. The agroecology major had the science I really loved (life science, genetics, sustainable agriculture, horticulture, agronomy, agroecology and of course entomology) without the really advanced math that I had struggled with so much in past semesters.

When I graduate with a B.S. in agroecology and a minor in entomology, I hope to attend graduate school at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. Texas A&M has an incredible entomology program and is one of the top 10 best research universities.

I absolutely love to do research in entomology. Even though Penn State doesn't have an undergraduate entomology program, I have been doing research in their department since I was a freshman in college. In the past, I have conducted research on Helicoverpa zea caterpillars. I am most interested in arachnids. However, because spiders often aren't pests (they usually kill the real pests), there is few research opportunities available on them. I am also interested in forensic entomology. I haven't really figured out what type of entomology I want to go into but I am open to getting involved with a diverse range of research in entomology and relating topics.