What life is like as an Animal Management student at Reaseheath
Hello! I’m Rhianna, and I have been at Reaseheath for the past four years. I began my life at Reaseheath in college, doing a Technical Baccalaureate in Animal Management (or Tech Bacc for people who hate tongue twisters), and I am now in my second year at University Centre Reaseheath completing a Foundation degree in Zoo Management.
Since I’ve been here for such a long time, I’ve come to know the ins and outs of Reaseheath and made some great experiences and friends, and I’m writing this blog to help you too! Maybe this is your first time living away from home, or you’re just wondering how all the nitty gritty works, but we’ll get to all that later.
I mainly chose to come to Reaseheath because it has the on-site zoo, which is not only beneficial to my lessons through practically working with the animals, but you can also go and see the animals whenever you want outside of lessons which is cool in itself. Here’s a picture of me during college with the zoo’s American Barn Owl, Hilda, and another picture of me in university with the resident Lowland Tapir, Timmy.
Don’t be fooled though, the practicals involve a lot of wet and muddy work! Especially when you’re outside, which is why I have a boiler suit since it can just go over my clothes and be washed straight afterwards (I also have multiple pairs just in case I don’t fancy doing the washing that day). When you do practicals inside the zoo, it can get really hot because of the humidity the animals are kept in, so its good to have a polo shirt and work trousers as well.
Another aspect of Reaseheath which I enjoyed was the fact that I could stay on-site in accommodation. At the time, I was struggling with my mental health and issues with my family, so the independence was refreshing and it felt like I could finally become an adult, as cringe as that sounds. It also gave me a chance to make new friends, and a helpful bonus was that at least two people in my corridor ended up being in the same class as me.
There’s a lot of ways to meet people at college and uni in general too, like the freshers events as well as the evening events in the bar. If you can’t drive, Reaseheath also offers free minibus trips to places like Sainsburys and Morrisons but also to the cinema or Crewe Retail Park, which helped me quite a lot. I stayed in Tomkinson during college and now I stay in Chetwood. If you stay in accommodation, bring a clothes horse, slippers and some decorations to spice your room up a bit and make it cozy. Under 18 rooms don’t have ovens, but the canteen food is still a nice substitute! Keep things in your room rather than the kitchen though to stop people stealing your food (speaking from experience!)
One of the best things to do to get the most out of Reaseheath is to join societies. There’s so many available that you’ll be able to meet people with similar interests to you, and it’s up to you how much you actually go, so don’t feel pressured into it.
In short, go out of your comfort zone and enjoy it as much as you can! I’ll probably write another blog at some point, so stay tuned!
