Letters to the Editor
Interning in the Northwest
Dear editor,
This is my story that I want other students to know about so that they can work faster towards their career.
At the beginning of spring semester 2008, I decided I did not want to spend another hot summer in Georgia. So, I searched the internet for a way to gain experience in biology through an internship to help direct my career path. Stumbling upon thesca.org I decided to take a deeper look. The “SCA” stands for the “Student Conservation Association” in which they take a $250 minimum donation from sponsors who care to invest in the education of conservation to young students.
Students, such as myself, fill out one application stating the major they are working toward and various other questions that will help the SCA determine where they are best suited to serve. The location of the application is on the SCA website, thesca.org. After you finish your application, you then go to the map of the United States on their website and click on any region of the country where you are interested in going.
Personally, I chose to go somewhere in the Northwest. I chose, from a list of National Parks in the Northwest region, Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area in Washington State.
Throughout the long (three month) internship in summer, I learned so many trades geared toward a biology career while getting paid $75 a week, having free round-trip air fare, free housing and free experience working with the National Park Service. I mainly did habitat restoration work by planting the native Bitter-brush plant on a seven acre area that was burned by a neighboring housing developer.
Other tasks that I was involved in were educating local school children, grades K-3, about the Shrub-Steppe habitat that they live in, and an osprey survey, which entailed taking count for every active osprey nest along the shore of Lake Roosevelt by boat which led to my comprehension of the ArcPad hand-held global positioning system (GPS), which I corrected way-points and polygons using Pathfinder Office and downloaded shape files into ArcGIS geographic information systems (GIS). I also created meta-data to map exactly where those nests were, so in the future park officials can find the nests with ease.
The ArcGIS and GPS systems were also used in weed mapping around day use areas within the park so that those exotic weeds can be exterminated in the time to come. I also qualified for and received an AmeriCorps award of $1250 to go toward my college tuition for working at least 450 volunteer hours for the National Park Service.
I will definitely consider doing an internship with the SCA in the future and I am trying to let other students know what is available to them. If they are not some kind of science major I also encourage them to just search the internet to find some sort of internship that is right for them. There is nothing to lose but everything, such as experience, to gain.
Emily Garrett
Junior
Biology major
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 3 2008. Filed under Letters to the Editor, Opinion.
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