If you're a pre-grad-school ecologist whose summer gig was canceled and you're not sure how to move forward, you're not alone--a lot of folks are going through that right now. And you can still get useful skills if you're stuck at home or in a non-ecology job. A few ways:

1. Become a better naturalist. Get a field guide (or app) and learn all the birds in your neighborhood (esp. by ear!). Learn the trees. Learn the plants. Most great ecologists I know are great naturalists, and like to hire great naturalists to work for them.

2. Learn a free software program (like R, or maybe python). Learn to import and manipulate data (e.g., go through the dplyr cheat sheet until you know what all the commands do). Learn to make pretty graphs. It'll seem like a foreign language at first, but it will help you later

3. Learn how to do stats (in a free program like R or python). Learn when and how to apply t-tests, ANOVA, regression, GLMs, and their non-parametric equivalents. If you can do this before grad school, you're way ahead of the game.

4. Learn to use GIS software (in a free program like R or QGIS). Make some pretty maps of your favorite hike, or the locations of every NBA team, or per capita income in each US state. Calculate the distance from a bunch of points to the nearest lake. Whatever. Maps are useful

5. Learn everything there is to know about your favorite taxon. Like trees? Learn every tree in your state, how to ID them, learn their distribution, learn what type of land they like, learn associated trees/animals, learn how leaves/roots/bark work, etc.

6. Learn to write better. Write e-mails, write letters, write essays, write stories. Take all of the above apart--is a piece of writing good or bad? Why? How could it be improved? Read writing about writing. You'll get better if you do.

At least 5 of the 6 skills above will be VITAL to your career in ecology. These are the things you learn in grad school. If you learn them now, you'll be ahead of the game. And if you take time to learn these skills (any one of them), you'll be better off than if you don't.

Keep applying for other ecology jobs. Eventually we'll get through these weird and terrible times. But don't despair if you can't find work this summer--there's still a lot you can do. And if you do any of this stuff, you'll be ahead of a whole crowd of people who didn't.