{"id":2509,"date":"2014-03-17T16:52:52","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T23:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/?p=2509"},"modified":"2014-03-17T16:54:06","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T23:54:06","slug":"l-g-life-graduation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/2014\/03\/17\/l-g-life-graduation\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A.G (Life After Graduation)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"photo-3\"<\/a>

The author communing with ocean critters.<\/p><\/div>\n

For those of you who followed my ten-week journey in the quaint town of Bandon, Oregon as a Coastal Tourism Intern with the non-profit Wild Rivers Coast Alliance, you have some idea of my background. \u00a0However, for those of you who are just tuning in, let me tell you some basic facts about myself that will help put things in perspective: I have known that I wanted to be a marine biologist since the age of four when I fell into a manta ray touch tank at Sea World, I graduated this past June from the University of California Santa Cruz with a Bachelors of Science in Marine Biology, I adore slimy odd creatures that provoke a queasy look from most, and if I could eat a doughnut a day and not gain a pound I would.<\/p>\n

Post Bandon: Flash forward eight months after graduation, and now instead of spending hours in the library frantically trying to decode physics problems and figure out what exactly the right format for a scientific paper is, my days are filled with making Cappuccinos (and usually scalding myself with 150\u00b0 <\/b>milk) and asking the general populous how their day is going.\u00a0 I have gone from spending 50 plus hours a week in lecture halls and libraries, to 40 hours a week at two part-time jobs: a retail associate and a barista.\u00a0 Now to some this might seem like an odd progression of events.\u00a0 I spent (and by I, I mean my lovely parents) thousands of dollars on a University education to ask people if they want room for cream in their coffee?! \u00a0This is the reaction I received from many family friends, colleagues, and random strangers when I was asked what my plans after graduation were.\u00a0 For those of you who immediately understand the reasoning behind my choice, you rock.\u00a0 However, for those of you who are still a wee bit baffled, let me explain\u2026<\/p>\n

Roughly speaking, I have been in some kind of formal education for the past eighteen years of my life.\u00a0 That\u2019s somewhere in the ball park of 22,610 hours IN school; not counting hours spent in addition to the traditional school day, or extra hours on the weekend.\u00a0 And for the most part I\u2019ve loved every second!\u00a0 But as my senior year rolled around, I saw a shift.\u00a0 While I decided to load on the units so I could fit in all the awesome classes and internships that I wanted to take advantage of before I graduated, many of my friends took numerous GE\u2019s which enabled them to have something called \u201cA social life.\u201d\u00a0 At first this didn\u2019t bother me because I was a senior, and as such and had put my partying years behind me (visible on my transcript by my two attempts each at Chemistry 1A and Calculus 1).\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t their ability to party that had me jealous; it was their ability to go hiking for an entire afternoon, or to take spontaneous weekend trips that didn\u2019t need to be planned around papers or midterms.\u00a0 I was able to get through my 23-unit final quarter by telling myself \u201cJust wait till after graduation.\u00a0 Then you can have the whole summer to do nothing and spend time with friends!\u201d\u00a0 However this wasn\u2019t the case as I was fortunate enough to be one of six students accepted into Oregon Sea Grant\u2019s amazing Summer Scholars program; one of the more awesome things that has happened to me.\u00a0 So naturally it started two days after, and 631 miles away from graduation.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m not going to go into detail about my summer experience in Bandon Oregon, for that you can feel free to check out my previous blog posts (which I highly recommend as they contain pictures of cute animals and delicious pastries).\u00a0 But I will try to put into words what I took away from my experience.\u00a0 I will start off by saying that my internship was the polar opposite of what I thought I was getting myself into, and I will even go as far as saying that I was a little let down at first.\u00a0 But what I initially thought was a feeling of being let down, I later realized was a feeling of being slightly confused, and generally lost.\u00a0 Being a recently graduated marine biology major, I went into this experience with a somewhat jaded attitude and blindly assumed that what I was going to be doing would involve constant action in the field, and my work would have instant applications.\u00a0 WRONG.\u00a0 Essentially I was charged with figuring out a way to boost the economy of Southern Coastal Oregon via revamping their ideas of tourism.\u00a0 This was the exact definition of putting a small fish into a huge pond, or the Pacific Ocean if you will.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never worked on such a large-scale project before and this was a huge undertaking unlike anything I had done before.\u00a0 My assignment was not a lab study or research project; there was no hypothesis or conclusion.\u00a0 In other words, there was no clear path to follow or set steps to go through.\u00a0 When I first started this internship, I was slightly annoyed that I didn\u2019t have more tasks to do.\u00a0 As time passed, I realized that part of that was due to the fact that I was working with such an enormous \u201cbig picture\u201d idea, and I had no idea of what direction to go in.\u00a0 Eventually I came to realize that any kind of change (especially on this level) deserves a great amount of time and consideration (AKA., a little more time than my ten-week stay).\u00a0 Not much in this world is 100% certain.\u00a0 Sometimes you need to move forward and grab the amazing and unknown opportunities in front of you.<\/p>\n

This experience taught me that no one field can stand on its own; for example, for tourism to be successful, the ecological, business, political, and marketing concerns must be addressed as well.\u00a0 While my experience didn\u2019t necessarily change my career goals, it did drive home the points that: 1). There needs to be better communication between the scientific and non-scientific communities (such that issues and topics are presented in a way that makes them seem approachable) and 2).\u00a0 There is a growing need to educate future generations on the environmental issues and assets that are right in their backyard, and that if the environment isn\u2019t properly taken care of, lots of money and time will eventually need to go into fixing it (if it can be fixed at all).\u00a0 It also taught me that any experience is a good experience.\u00a0 I hope this point resonates with everyone who reads this, whether you are an adult who has been in their chosen field for 20 plus years, or are an undergraduate who is unsure what they want to do with their life. However clich\u00e9 this sounds, remember that everyone is different.\u00a0 We can\u2019t all be that person who got all A\u2019s in their undergraduate career, and then went directly into their masters and PhD (but for those of you who did do that, you are more amazing and awe-inspiring than being able to successfully fry Oreos); some of us have to do a little more wandering until we find our path.<\/p>\n

A large portion of the reason I didn\u2019t immediately go to gradschool after my internship with Oregon Sea Grant (besides the likelihood that I wouldn\u2019t have gotten into my top choices\u2026) was that I had no idea what I wanted to study.\u00a0 That unknown was something that I struggled with for nearly my entire college career, and something that at times made me feel quite inadequate.\u00a0 I feel like it took me stepping away to help me realize what I\u2019m truly passionate about, and what I want to spend the rest of my life doing.\u00a0 In the next year or two, I will be going to graduate school to get my degree in some mixture of conservation, management, outreach, and elasmobranchs.\u00a0 And I couldn\u2019t be happier.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure how many of you made it through this whole post, and how many of you stopped reading when you realized there were no pastry or cute animal pictures.\u00a0 If you did reach the end then I hope you took something from this; whether it was as simple as a laugh at my joke (or more likely my attempt at a joke) or an understanding that you don\u2019t always have to have the answer to the rest of you life planned out and ready for the next person who asks.<\/p>\n

\"photo-4\"<\/a>

A marine biologist perfects her foam (too bad it\u2019s not sea foam).<\/p><\/div>\n

So on that note, I\u2019m off to make some lattes!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those of you who followed my ten-week journey in the quaint town of Bandon, Oregon as a Coastal Tourism Intern with the non-profit Wild Rivers Coast Alliance, you have some idea of my background. \u00a0However, for those of you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1387509,7491,1387503],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catherine-courtier","category-former-scholars","category-summer-scholars"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2515,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions\/2515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}