Hooray For The Audubon Society (And My Possible Upcoming Docent Training)

[Thalassa]

I've recently moved to a part of the South Bay Area where I'm still in close proximity to Santa Monica but am also basically right on the beach (walking distance) and also near a wildlife conservation reserve. In September, those wetlands sponsor a docent training in conjunction with the Audubon Society that is once per week for six weeks, then I would start working as a volunteer docent throughout the school year to take children on tours of the wetlands and bird watching.

SOOO EXCITED. I told the lady I was taking a Wildlife and Forestry Conservation course on-line, and that I am probably going to move up north to Humboldt County to start an Associates in Forestry next year (unless I change my mind and stay in the Bay Area and get a B.S. in Environmental Science instead) ...but either way I need some hands-on volunteer experience to supplement my current course as I'm getting started with my career change, and she said she loves to write letters of recommendation and started as a volunteer docent herself 15 years ago and is now employed as a director of this wetlands program.

Yay!

 

[JAVO]

What a great opportunity! It'll be so much fun too. Hard to beat a great career-start position which is also fun. Congrats!

I have an IRL friend from your old neck of the woods who has a BS in Environmental Science.

 

[Thalassa]

What a great opportunity! It'll be so much fun too. Hard to beat a great career-start position which is also fun. Congrats!

I have an IRL friend from your old neck of the woods who has a BS in Environmental Science.

That's awesome!

If there's some way just through living near the Heal the Bay project and the Ballona wetlands, and completing my certificate in my current course (I've heard of someone getting a job recently with *only* this course...I'm sure it depends on what you want to do, though)....then I can start, and work on a B.S. in Enviro Science, because then my foot will already be in the door.

There are things about the beach I love, the weather is not as warm up north, though the ocean is still there. There are sacrifices to living in the redwood forest...principally that it's 50/60 degrees THE ENTIRE YEAR...never really gets cold, but is always a tad chilly, like perpetual spring or fall.

Big Sur area is a bit nicer, it does have a proper summer (70/80 degree temps and sunshine), but there's no forestry program in Monterey county that I can see, probably principally because Big Sur is very difficult to access in the roughest parts of the year (occasionally the entire coastline falls off and blocks HWY 1...part of the reason Big Sur is so beautiful and ecologically diverse is because Big Bad Nature Wins There, and there are also man-made laws to protect it), and I'm sure they have tons of people who want to work there.

But I really do love the redwood forest and the more I learn about it, the more I love it, and once I finished school I could probably move to central CA or even back to SoCal for a job of some sort.

I've not decided yet, but as long as I'm making progress that's all that matters, and the prospect of doing this volunteer program really makes me happy.

What did your friend do with his/her B.S. in Enviro Science? Some people say they're too non-specific, others indicate people have gotten jobs with them.

I wonder how much it depends on where you do your internship, etc.

 

[JAVO]

It sounds like a tough decision--interesting or really interesting. It's nice to have decisions like that though. I really like 50/60 degree weather, and any type of forested area is interesting, so the redwood forest sounds perfect to me! I'm also amazed by temperate rainforest, such as in some areas of the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska.

My friend did mostly water quality testing. Most of the time, she worked for a company rather than the government. Now she works for a chemical company testing their products. I think that was mostly motivated by getting a job in the same city as her husband.

 

[Thalassa]

It sounds like a tough decision--interesting or really interesting. It's nice to have decisions like that though. I really like 50/60 degree weather, and any type of forested area is interesting, so the redwood forest sounds perfect to me! I'm also amazed by temperate rainforest, such as in some areas of the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska.

My friend did mostly water quality testing. Most of the time, she worked for a company rather than the government. Now she works for a chemical company testing their products. I think that was mostly motivated by getting a job in the same city as her husband.

Well part of what I'm also taking into consideration are development of current relationships and overall quality of life.

I have to decide sensibly and not like "oh I love the redwoods!" or "no I love the beach!" I mean both places equally need environmental workers, it's absolutely staggering what Heal the Bay has been able to accomplish in the South Bay since the 1990s.

Thanks for all of your input.