About Botany, BA (Hons) - at Trinity College Dublin
What is botany?Botany is the scientific study of plants - in the field, in the botanic garden and in laboratory situations. Plants include the largest forest trees, single-celled algae of fresh and marine waters, multi-cellular seaweeds, and yeasts and moulds.
The study of plants is of vital importance; they are the source of all the food we eat, all the oxygen we breathe, most of the medicines we use, the timbers and plant fibres which still shelter, warm and clothe us and are core to the understanding of the processes of global climate change. Human manipulation of plants in the future will provide food for an expanding human population whilst conserving the biodiversity of living organisms and integrity of habitats.
What will you study?Trinity specialises in the study of the evolution and conservation of all forms of plant life, their response to global climate changes both in Europe and the tropics and ecology.
Courses will include:
- Plant biodiversity & conservation
- Woodland and grassland ecology
- Plant physiology and global climate change
- Tropical ecology
- Plant molecular biology
- Polination biology
The laboratories and greenhouses on campus, the College Botanic Garden and the internationally recognised Herbarium support teaching. Most courses are derived from active research lines and emphasis is placed on your own research project in the Senior Sophister (fourth) year.
All students are given the opportunity to participate in field trips: most trips are based within Europe, but trips to the tropics are sometimes arranged.
Career opportunitiesWhen you graduate you can move directly into a career related to plant biology, such as nature conservation, environmental consultancy, agricultural research or applied microbiology. Alternatively, you might decide to go on to take a higher degree in Trinity or elsewhere. The skills you acquire in the Sophister (third and fourth) years are nonetheless also widely applicable in business and industry.
