Online Master of Science Program

There is still a bit of hooblah spoken about online degree programs and there are some that definitely deserve that.  However, these programs have come a long ways in the short time that they have been created.  The quality programs have many avenues for interactive learning which make an experience that is on par with an education at a physical university.

I spent 2017 enrolled at Unity College’s online M.S. Sustainable Natural Resource Management program.  To be honest, I was nervous and unsure about the quality of education that I would be getting from a college that is thousands of miles away from me.  It was also a bit rough getting back into the swing of school work after 3+ years out of the university.  The apprehension from both of these concerns subsided within the first couple weeks.

The degree was accelerated and was a solid year of continuous classes and hard work.  Each course consisted of reading material, class discussions, daily paperwork, and a final project.  The class discussions were very helpful and aided in creating an atmosphere of a physical classroom.  There were also group phone call discussions that also broke down the barriers of the screen.  The final project was very refreshing from the typical final in most universities.  The project was personalized and localized with only a few parameters, such as length and stayed within the scope of the course. Most of my projects were focused on wildlife-vehicle collision mitigation.

Since this was an online program, it didn’t have a true thesis, but did have a capstone project.  The teacher that facilitated the capstone I and II courses was absolutely amazing.  The interactive classroom environment also allowed for some great feedback and discussion.  My capstone project created a report for Boulder County about the hot spots of wildlife-vehicle collisions and mitigation suggestions. I then followed up and emailed the report to several wildlife and natural resource managers of the city and county.

I received great feedback and discussions that revolved around the lack of funding for such a project.  If I were to do the project again, I would’ve spent more time in researching strategies in procuring funds for larger wildlife management projects.

The reason I decided to enroll was to further my knowledge and to make me stand out in the piles of resumes that is so easy to get lost in.  It is too soon to tell if it was worth it in the latter sense, but I did receive fulfillment, knowledge, and purpose throughout this process.

Mexican Spotted Owl 2016

First off, I’d like to say that I haven’t posted for awhile because I have been super busy with tons of little projects.

In 2016, I picked up my second biological technician job.  The purpose of this job was to survey Arizona and New Mexico for Mexican Spotted Owls (Strix Occidentalis lucida).  This program was run by The Bird Conservancy of the Rockies with the purpose of collecting data about MSO presence and reporting it to the Forest Service Agency.  The MSO is a threatened species and so it is required by the Endangered Species Act that government agencies monitor their population levels.  If the threat of extinction becomes greater, agencies are required to do more active measures, such as closing down trails where active breeding nests are, controlled-burns, etc.

The  technicians were asked to meet in Flagstaff at a cabin in the wood for training and to pick up equipment. I usually shy on the side of introvert when meeting many people at once, but since I was one of the first people there;  I was able to get to know a couple people first.   We spent 4 days learning protocol, identifying all owl species that could possibly be in the Southwest, learning our way around our equipment, and getting to know each other better. I  was assigned a  partner and an amazing area to survey: the Gila National Forest.

We arrived in Silver City, NM, which would be our base of operations for the next 3.5 months.  Although we weren’t given any place to stay, I was excited to be spending the season car camping and backpacking in the Gila and Aldo Leopold National Forests and Wildernesses.  I am naturally a night owl, but it did take a little bit of time getting used to staying up all night and into the morning working.

We were lucky enough to be working in the survey area where there were the most MSOs in the entire project area and we found lots! I even spotted a Western Screech Owl one night.  The flora and fauna in that area is absolutely breathtaking and I still think of those places we hiked to often.  One of my favorite places to survey was the Gila Wilderness area.

In order to get to all of the survey sites in the Wilderness, we were set up with a guide, horses, and mules.  Since  we had to survey each site twice throughout the season, I was lucky enough to go on this 6 day excursion twice.  Each of us rode a horse and had a mule  carry our food, water, and supplies.  There were also a couple dogs that  came along for the trip. Riding a horse for 5 hours straight for days is something I didn’t think would wear on the body as much as it does, but our  bodies our  resilient and adapted quickly.

There was plenty of cool wildlife that I came across including: coati, owls, black bears, glow worms, bats, elk, solpugids, bark scorpions, and plenty of eyes in the night.  There were magnificent canyons, moon rises, and sunsets.  There was also plenty of beautiful rocks and geological formations; I even found an Apache arrowhead.

The season ended before the monsoon season took full effect and I left New Mexico feeling restored by the earth, a more competent biologist, and with a best friend.

Finally landed a Field Job

Img: NE Nevada Range land. 

After hundreds of failed job applications and millions of revisions of my cover letter methods and resumes, I finally landed a job as an Invasive Plant Technician.

The job was with the Eastern Nevada Landscape Coalition in Elko, NV.  At the time, I hardly had a though about Nevada as a place that exists in the world, but it is now one of my favorite places that I have been to!  There’s hot springs, hundreds of mountain ranges, lots of wildlife, and forests of big sage and rabbit brush. Each range looks drab and monotonous from a distance, but once investigated, each one proved to have a unique community of life.

My responsibilities for this position was to help monitor and “control” invasive and noxious plant species.  If you don’t know much about invasives, they can be nasty little buggers and degrade a habitat of its biodiversity in a matter of a couple of years.  I would say that most of them that make the list as noxious or invasive, is a political objective for ranchers to maximize the amount of productive range land.  Herbicide use is pretty nasty stuff and is very often grossly over used, but with a couple of species of plants it is the only effective method.

We worked 4 tens, which means 4 ten hour days, the pay was great, and a three day weekend allowed for exploring the west.  I spent time in Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah; I visited national parks, state parks, forests, and BLM range.

This job and the people I worked with created a deeper hunger to work on conservation projects and to learn more and more about the natural world.  Identifying plant life became a hobby of mine that started here and I continue to do it on hikes and almost anytime spent outdoors.

Since most of us want to do some sort of field research, it becomes a priority for most hiring organizations to require some time worked in the field, this can be tough to achieve (like I said they want field work experience).  It may not be a great method to get your foot in the door for some, but it is a place to gain experience that usually doesn’t have any hardlined requirements, besides some grit, gotta have grit.

The camaraderie  of working with people who are all interested in conserving biodiversity ethical behavior, and living sustainable lives was very refreshing, escpecially when compared to the sort of people you work with at retail stores!  I still keep in contact with a few of them, and miss them all lots.

 

New: Resources Page

   [Hummingbird nest]

Keeping up with today’s technology and fast paced environment is a huge feat!  Data analysis and modeling have become a very popular way to study our natural world and so it is increasingly important to acquire programming skills.

I know what you’re thinking and yes, it’s a lot to ask a Biologist or Ecologist to also be able to program, luckily there are websites that makes learning languages such as python, sql, and R a piece of pie.

These are posted in the resources page, along with job employment websites in our field.  These websites make learning programming super easy.  They take you step by step and are meticulously designed to make sure you get help when and where you need it.  Best of all is…..they are FREE!!!!!   You shouldn’t have to pay to learn computer programming with these and other resources on the web, unless you are interested in taking a college course, which I would highly recommend.

So take fifteen minutes out of your day every day and learn some programming, you’ll be glad you did!

Working towards my first gig

It was a few months after graduating with my degree before I realized (and I assume most grads do) that a bachelors degree isn’t enough to land you a job that you were promised. With most jobs asking for a years experience at least, I set my sights on volunteering to gain that experience.

Since I had to work full time to pay for living, I began with small stuff. I started doing waterfowl monitoring weekly for the county.  This was a great opportunity and I know it’s a sacrifice of time, energy, and money, but it does pay off!  I then also found another volunteer position where I monitored raptors in the county.  Both of these were pivotal in creating the base of my career experience.

It began with researching wildlife monitoring positions in my area and contacting the organizations running them.  Just a simple email opens up so many doors, I can’t express that enough.  People in our field are very loving and want to expand the community involvement in conservation of our wild lands. So never think that you’ll be a burden because they all love teaching young scientists the ropes.  The only gear that I needed was a snack and binoculars. I didn’t have the car at the time, so walking and the bus was my mode of transportation. It was tough, and I was already used to tough from living on a slim budget and eating rice and beans, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything!

Soon I will be posting a page where you all can find job opportunities in these fields.  It has taken me awhile to amass this solid list and I feel like it is a great resource in putting your education out into the field.

First blog post

I should’ve and have been told by many people to start a blog years ago and am finally getting around to it.  My intent on this blog is to help young biologists and ecologists by giving them an idea of what the post-college pathway looks and feels like.  I know of only one other blog like this and it has been updated for years, so maybe it’s time for me to carry the torch…

Suppose I should start by giving a brief background on my upbringing and education.  I grew up in a rural area in the mid-west (a town of 900 people) and spent a fair amount of time in river floodplains, giant cottonwoods and evergreen forests. My grade school teacher was a superb naturalist and I believe he helped instill a deep interest of the outdoors in me.

My parents both came from families that hunted deer and pheasants, so I took my gun safety certification as soon as I was old enough. Looking back now, I realize that all of the time I spent hunting, was also important in shaping my deep interest in the outdoors, as well as giving me the perspective of the hunter when considering conservation topics.

Rows and rows of monotonous mono-cultured crops grew old and so I went west to Boulder Colorado to earn my Bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. It was a hard time working full-time through school and taking a full class load, so I didn’t have many opportunities to volunteer monitoring birds or naturalist programs, but wish I’d had that extra experience today.

I’ll write soon and explain the process of getting that first field job, no matter what it is!