That means you care about the work, which is good. We’ve done a lot of damage, and continue to do so, but we’re also working on fixing it. There have been lots of good recovery stories, and they all started out as disasters.
Odds are you won’t be doing the same thing your whole life. Interests change and options change. As far as a job, pick something you have some interest in but finding a pleasant work environment is just as important. Learn all the different skills you can while there. Use those skills to shape your next job. I am effective on iNaturalist as a hobby in retirement because of the skills I learned in diverse jobs, none of which had much to do with biology.
except it’s also NOT good for the mental health of professionals in the field. burnout and worse is under-acknowledged in environmental professionals.
Both fields are exceptionally difficult right now. you can carve out careers in either (as well as a career that involved both if you want it) but doing so requires you to both be lucky as well as to do the “right things”, not all of which are necessarily laid out for you before you begin your journey.
For example, if you want to pursue ornithology as a career, then you need to dial in the degree before you choose your university. General biology (typically follows a more research focus), wildlife biology (tends to involve more management and research about management), ecology (involves the interaction of the species with its environment which can have a ton of different aspects and specialties), an actual degree in ornithology (IMO, probably getting too specialized too early to get a bachelor’s in ornithology). Not to mention there are a lot of support roles out there that aren’t directly involved in the science. You can take the pathway that you want to be a finance person and do grant writing, manage budgets, etc. You can take a pathway to be the executive director of a nonprofit (there’s not one single way to get here, but I’ve noticed a LOT of these folks have law degrees), you can be a project manager, you can do volunteer management, you can do marketing. Lots of things. Honestly, probably more of these roles than there are boots-on-the-ground scientists and management staff because nonprofits like to utilize volunteers.
I am “technically” in the field, though I’m currently unemployed. I have a master’s degree and I have yet to break into a full-time role. The early career pathway in wildlife and conservation is very difficult to get from seasonal and itinerant into a stable role. FWIW, “environmental science” tends to lean more towards land and water issues, especially things like wetland work, groundwater work, and so on. But most universities consider it a pretty broad subject (and it is), once you get into the working world, the focus narrows some. My master’s degree is technically environmental science but my background is more ecological (I combined coursework and research on wildlife, botany, geology, and geography). At my last job, I was working on road ecology issues (things like habitat fragmentation, road crossings, and wildlife movement across a landscape with roads as barriers). I just recently earned professional certification as an associate ecologist and am working on the paperwork for professional certification as a wildlife biologist. It’s early yet to know if the professional certification will help me in my career moving forward, but the hope is that it does.
A good place to look at what to study would be to look at professional societies that might be relevant to the scientific pathways you might be interested in. The Wildlife Society, Ecological Society of America, American Ornithological Society, etc. Look at what the orgs do and the jobs connected with them (especially if they host job boards) and especially any early career resources they offer. Look at the requirements for any professional certifications they might offer (not all will offer certs).
I will end with this - the USA is full of people with biological/environmental/wildlife degrees who ended up pursuing other things. I have a friend who began his master’s degree in environmental science, then dropped out and became a financial planner. I have another who dropped out of her master’s program in wildlife biology and then started nursing school.
I have bounced around as much as I have in large part because I didn’t follow the pathway of doing seasonal work in scattered places for several years. I did a little bit of that but then I met someone and got married. Her job is very much NOT that mobile so if I did years of seasonal work, I’d have been living elsewhere. Beyond that, her job is also not one that tends to be as good in remote places like where mine would be better. And I probably would not have gotten married if I had pursued the career first. I’m fortunate in that her job makes up some for the fact that I’ve not been in a stable career. But it still weighs heavy on me.
That’s true for a lot of jobs, but I was just trying to put a more positive spin on it. I read a lot of stories on GNN about habitat restoration, species recovering, and stuff like that. Of course, I don’t see the “before” image, and I don’t really feel what it’s like to be in those devastated areas.
All I can say is that I really appreciate the people doing the work.
it’s honestly less about individual projects though. yeah, sometimes you wind up working on a project that documents something very unfortunate (I spent some time on a long-term project years ago that documented a pretty significant decline in spotted turtle populations over 20+yrs that resulted in an increased degree of protection at the state level). yes, the population decline was tragic, but increased legal protections were a positive thing.
but the problems are more structural in the field. lack of stability for entry-level roles. lack of benefits for those roles. employers who count on the fact that you work in the field out of passion and exploit that to pay less and give fewer benefits (this is true for pretty much any industry people work in because they’re passionate about something). decreased funding to work on research, restoration, or management projects. fewer and fewer jobs in existence to do that work because the funding has been disappearing for so long.
Have a think about where you would like to live for the lifestyle. Do you have family you need to be near, do you prefer certain climates (or loathe others), would your kids have a good education and lifestyle. On your time off, what kind of things are available to enjoy.
I work in mental health. One of the most important questions I ask is “What do you do for fun?” The number of people who look at me blankly is the vast majority. The fun is the stuff that keeps us sane.
There are lots of environmental jobs in this part of the world and we get a lot of people from other states and countries because other places don’t have the same opportunity. How mobile are you professionally, and how transferrable will your skills be?