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I& #39;m getting questions bout how I did all these international field things. It& #39;s a fair question, conservation often makes it so you either don& #39;t get paid as an early-career practitioner OR you have to pay.
Which is a problem, if you, like I was, are broke. (cont& #39;d)
#WeOutHere
Which is a problem, if you, like I was, are broke. (cont& #39;d)
#WeOutHere
So how did I do it? I read a lot of papers. I cold-emailed corresponding authors. I joined Twitter. I applied for scholarships. As a senior in university, I was lucky enough to get a Rotary Global grant to study in South Africa. One problem - funding covered one year.
So I chose an accelerated 14-month Masters course at the University of Cape Town that covered both classes and a full dissertation in a little over a year. I did my degree there, and it was one of the hardest and most rewarding things I never did. Then, I needed a job.
Which is a problem with little experience. I crammed in experience in R and QGIS (open sourced software) through Youtube and a give-em-Hell attitude. I taught myself video editing. I reached out to every contact I knew, and made friends with carnivore researchers at school.
Basically, I knew the field was competitive, so I made sure I built a strong skillset of extra useful stuff (self-taught...again, I was pretty much broke except for the scholarship), and used that as a win-win situation to gain experience in conservation projects.
I got my first job working on a leopard project in the Northern Cape of South Africa, as I was already in SA at the time. I traded a heck of a lot of mapping for experience in human-wildlife conflict mapping. I did grant writing. I came up with environmental education skits.
Then, I literally asked to volunteer on a project in Kenya to learn more about their Predator Compensation Fund, with a contact I networked with through (I kid you not), asking to use one of his photos for a Kickstarter video for an environmental video game I co-designed.
From there, I did several more placements, and then networked my way into my first major job, leading a human-wildlife conflict response and research team in Namibia, but my methodology never changed.
Rule 1: I was never going to pay for a field placement.
Rule 2: When I was building my career, no job was too boring or too difficult, even entering in data for literal eons.
Rule 3: I would give an added benefit to the project which would make them more likely to take me on.
Rule 2: When I was building my career, no job was too boring or too difficult, even entering in data for literal eons.
Rule 3: I would give an added benefit to the project which would make them more likely to take me on.
This meant literally learning everything from Photoshop and IMovie to R and Python and GIS and staying up late nights reading lit reviews on carnivore ecology until my eyes felt like they were going to implode.
I never paid for any of that. I couldn& #39;t afford it. But I needed it.
I never paid for any of that. I couldn& #39;t afford it. But I needed it.
A good example of my methodology at work - I wanted to get experience in Asia after a lot of time in Africa, I met a contact who works in Nepal. In exchange for room and board, I offered to teach GIS workshops to schoolkids. I got that experience.
NOW, there is an elephant in the room, which is, of course, plane tickets. Plane tickets are expensive. How did I pay for those?
In early days? Retail. Baristaing. Working in a library. Dogsitting. Food service. Sometimes several of those at once. And it was really, really hard.
In early days? Retail. Baristaing. Working in a library. Dogsitting. Food service. Sometimes several of those at once. And it was really, really hard.
I made a vision board of where I wanted to go, what I wanted to learn to do, what I wanted to become. And after double shifts, I& #39;d literally stay up and stare at it, and tell myself that I would get there. I& #39;d count out how long it& #39;d take me to get to Kenya, or Namibia.
I& #39;m not saying this is the right or the most sustainable approach for everyone. I have no dependents, and I was/am young and unattached. But it worked for me, and I hope it gives a little hope that, yeah, the deck IS stacked in favor of those with money and existing connections.
If you want it enough, that door isn& #39;t closed. You can find a way. But it might be an unblazed trail.
Learn everything you can (even skills that are not & #39;traditional& #39; conservation skills), think outside the box, get comfortable with networking. Remember WHY you& #39;re doing this.
Learn everything you can (even skills that are not & #39;traditional& #39; conservation skills), think outside the box, get comfortable with networking. Remember WHY you& #39;re doing this.
You do it by, in the immortal works of @Lin_Manuel
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🎶" title="Mehrere Musiknoten" aria-label="Emoji: Mehrere Musiknoten"> Working a lot harder
By being a lot smarter
By being a self-starterhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🎶" title="Mehrere Musiknoten" aria-label="Emoji: Mehrere Musiknoten">
I believe in you.
#BlackinSTEM
By being a lot smarter
By being a self-starter
I believe in you.
#BlackinSTEM
