Saturday, March 16, 2013

Spring Break for a Senior

I thought going into college that Spring Break was going to be some kind of adventure every year. I was wrong. This year in particular was the most uneventful for me in my three years here at UVM, but likely my most productive. At the very beginning of break I got hired at a new part-time job here in Burlington and therefore could not go home at all, and was left to stew in my apartment all alone for 10 days in between sporadic shifts of work. As everyone else I'm friends with went home or on a trip, I was left to my own thoughts for most of the 10 days. In which I really started to give some hard thought as to what I'm doing come May 19th. As a 3rd year senior I have had an entire year less than the rest of my fellow potential graduates to think about what it is that I really want to do and where I want to be going once that diploma is in my hands. This is really stressful, especially when I do not have much time to squeeze such daunting thoughts into my packed schedule of 18 credit semesters and two jobs. So I took the opportunity of Spring break to tackle my goals in the field of environmental science. In that time I finished up an application to a graduate program at Drexel University in Pennsylvania. I applied for the Environmental Science M.S. program and am hoping to work with Dr. Horwitz in aquatic ecosystems and species. I also started researching jobs in Southern New England in similar fields. Currently I am working on applications to both Mystic Aquarium in CT and Roger Williams Park Zoo in RI for a clinical researcher position and an animal care internship, respectively.
Having a minor in Zoology and a concentration in Conservation/Biodiversity both of these job opportunities really interested me. Not only do they really involve what I want to do, but these jobs are at places that house some of my greatest childhood memories. It was Mystic and Roger Williams where I first got to see exotic and foreign animals; things I could never imagine existed based off what I saw in my backyard. So working in these places and learning to care for animals and understand and experience the ground work that goes into conservation by educating the public and doing captive breedings, etc. would give me a great base of knowledge for the steps I would be taking once I decided to move on in my career.

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