Featured Undergraduate Student: JJ Bird
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EmailMeet JJ Bird, undergraduate student and Bug House Vice President for 23/24 academic year, who combines a love of the outdoors with an interest in the variety entomology has to offer.
Hometown: Plymouth, MI
Studies: Entomology major
What inspired your interest in entomology? I’ve been interested in insects pretty much since I can remember. They’re just really fascinating to me, and when I was a kid, I would always be digging outside or looking for bugs underneath my mom’s decorative landscaping rocks (she was less than thrilled about this).
What has been your most significant experience with Entomology outside of your classwork? Probably my best experience with entomology outside of my classwork has been the collecting trips I’ve been able to go on this past year. I really love seeing insects in their natural habitats and being able to find cool stuff when I’m outside collecting. A few weeks ago, I went on a collecting trip with Bug Club and found a lot of different arthropods, including fairy shrimp, tabanid and tipulid larvae, a very angry larval megalopteran, and some stag beetle adults and larvae.
Do you have advice for anyone interested in an entomology major or minor? I’d tell anyone interested in an entomology major or minor to go for it, and to also put themselves out there and explore as many areas of entomology as possible. There are a lot of different sub-disciplines and you never know what will really fascinate you until you explore a little.
What is your favorite activity/way to spend your time outside of your studies? Outside of entomology, I like to play and listen to music, play card games and hang out with my friends, and spend time in nature.
What is your favorite thing about MSU? My favorite thing about MSU is probably the amount of greenspace on campus. I really like spending time outside and the sheer number of trees and grassy open spaces is really nice when the weather isn’t terrible.
