Planning on teaching the young folks in the friend group how to garden and preserve food, how to make simple medications, how to defend themselves. And I’m also planning to leave as soon as I get my bachelor degree to pursue a research PhD in another country. I’m in ecology and conservation, there’s no future for me here.
A lot of our medications come from plants originally, and there are a lot of plants where I live with medicinal value. Willow is probably the best known because aspirin comes from it, and is very common in my area. The main thing will be teaching them which local plants have medicinal use, how to properly identify the plant (I have a dissecting microscope and a few identification books), and how to properly extract the compound that they want.
Steam distillation is a really common method for extracting essential oils, and it’s easy to do. Menthol can be extracted from mint this way.
Some of this is what I’ve learned in uni, but you can get somewhere by looking up the remedy you need in Google scholar with the scientific name of the plant you want to use. USDA plants has really good identification characteristics, so you don’t accidentally pick a toxic copy cat.
As someone studying engineering and also looking for a way out, what all options have you looked into? Immigration seems to be both expensive and competitive in most places, and those are two things I don’t know that I’m prepared for.
My advisor got her PhD in England, so I’ve been trying to get her help in navigating this. I specifically want to do a research PhD, so that narrows my choices a little. Something I don’t see mentioned much is networking. I’ve read a few studies that I can see myself doing, so I’m going to reach out to those researchers because my undergraduate research compliments their research.
There’s an exchange program called Erasmus that will provide a monthly living allowance. I saw another one that offered help with employment after completing the degree but I can’t find it now. That might have been university-specific.
Planning on teaching the young folks in the friend group how to garden and preserve food, how to make simple medications, how to defend themselves. And I’m also planning to leave as soon as I get my bachelor degree to pursue a research PhD in another country. I’m in ecology and conservation, there’s no future for me here.
That sounds very productive, wishing you luck in your pursuits
Really interested in this. Care to elaborate or share any sources on the matter?
A lot of our medications come from plants originally, and there are a lot of plants where I live with medicinal value. Willow is probably the best known because aspirin comes from it, and is very common in my area. The main thing will be teaching them which local plants have medicinal use, how to properly identify the plant (I have a dissecting microscope and a few identification books), and how to properly extract the compound that they want.
Steam distillation is a really common method for extracting essential oils, and it’s easy to do. Menthol can be extracted from mint this way.
Some of this is what I’ve learned in uni, but you can get somewhere by looking up the remedy you need in Google scholar with the scientific name of the plant you want to use. USDA plants has really good identification characteristics, so you don’t accidentally pick a toxic copy cat.
As someone studying engineering and also looking for a way out, what all options have you looked into? Immigration seems to be both expensive and competitive in most places, and those are two things I don’t know that I’m prepared for.
My advisor got her PhD in England, so I’ve been trying to get her help in navigating this. I specifically want to do a research PhD, so that narrows my choices a little. Something I don’t see mentioned much is networking. I’ve read a few studies that I can see myself doing, so I’m going to reach out to those researchers because my undergraduate research compliments their research.
There’s an exchange program called Erasmus that will provide a monthly living allowance. I saw another one that offered help with employment after completing the degree but I can’t find it now. That might have been university-specific.