My personal tutor was a WWII Spitfire pilot which was cool and I remember many of the staff who taught me in the early 1980s: Alan Patterson, David Harding, John Packham, Ted Morgan, David Miles, Ian Trueman etc. I spoke to Ian recently about urban habitats and the importance of conserving them. I used to come to the then Polytechnic on my 750cc Triumph Bonneville and park it outside the Robert Scott Library (now the Learning Centre). People knew if I was on campus if the bike was there, but the oil stain it left was still there after I graduated. I took a sabbatical from my studies in the final year to organise a 7-man expedition into the heart of Borneo and the Polytechnic was very supportive. I don’t think a student at the Poly had done such a thing before. In Sarawak we passed through the towns of Miri and Marudi and many years later I discovered that in the 20th Century the now University had Malaysian students from both of those towns. I visited their home town before they were born and now they are studying in my home town, Wolverhampton. Because I had been to Borneo I could sometimes comment from personal experience about rainforests or conservation, and I ended up giving a lecture on reptile diversity in a vertebrate module, while I was still a student. After I graduated I continued giving this lecture each year for several years. Armed with my degree and the experience from Borneo I ended up as a staff member on expeditions to Central America, Papua New Guinea, Amazonian Brazil, and West Africa, and that was only in the mid-late 1980s. None of that would have likely happened without my time at the Polytechnic.

It changed me from a reptile enthusiast into a reptile scientist, arming me with many of the ideas and tools I would need to follow an academic career, conduct fieldwork, write papers. I am absolutely certain that had I not attended the Polytechnic and done my degree I would not have managed to achieve as much as I now have. A degree is the key to your future because it opens the doors for you to advance within your area of interest.

Research, primarily into the snakes of New Guinea and Wallacea but also other herpetofaunas, and teaching of Animal Behaviour and Wildlife Conservation, and Biomedical students. We are building herpetology at the University but I teach on many other animal groups. No species exist in isolation, so to become a good specialist you first have to be a generalist and learn about other organisms and the environment. My research involves specimen loans from museums worldwide, lab work, and a lot of research reading and then writing of papers. One recent paper was, according to the ResearchGate repository, the most read paper at my institution, attracting over 6.5 thousand reads in less than two weeks. Publishing papers is a big part of my research at the University.

I’ve had quite a few highlights: 1985 - Graduation with a BSc. (hons) in Applied Sciences, Polytechnic of Wolverhampton 1999-2003 - Filming 4 seasons of “O’Shea’s Big Adventure” international tv series, Animal Planet 2000 - The Millennium Award for Services to Exploration in Zoology, Explorers Club of New York 2001 - My Honorary Doctor of Sciences degree, University of Wolverhampton, for services to herpetology 2009 - The development of “Mark O’Shea’s Reptile World” at West Midland Safari Park 2018 - Becoming Professor of Herpetology, University of Wolverhampton 2018 - The description of the Boano Island pipesnake (Cylindrophis osheai) by German colleagues 2020 - And of course my MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), for services to Higher Education, Zoology, Reptile Conservation, and Snakebite Research

Don’t lose sight of your dream. If you want to achieve something so much you can taste it then continue to strive for it in earnest and don’t give up, but remember success and failure are two sides of the same coin and to appreciate the one you have to taste the other. So don’t be put off by knockbacks. And be prepared to make sacrifices and apply time management and self-discipline if you want to achieve your goals.