I don't know what to do with my life, careerwise.

[CactusCarlos]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x130554

I don't know what to do with my life, careerwise.
Posted by XemaSab on Tue Jan-22-08 12:04 AM

I got my Bachelor's in Soil Science with a minor in Watershed Management back in 2003. I was originally intending to qualify for federal hydrology jobs, but alas, that extra semester of calculus just didn't quite happen my last semester in school. I've got some additional fun classes like climatology and geography that didn't apply to my degree, but that I took for personal enrichment. I've got to be frank and say that my grades were not all that. I chose a major that I thought would be a challenge, and it was. I worked hard for my degree, but I got a lot of B's and a lot of C's.

I've also been a bit of a birder for a few years, so when I was in school I did summer work as a biologist looking at birdies.

When I gradumacated I got a job as a biologist with an environmental consulting firm. Walking transects and writing reports for housing developers was ultimately soul-sucking, and I left that job after a year and a half.

Two years ago I got a job here in Santa Barbara with a different consulting firm that was much more to my liking. Instead of working for housing developers, we worked on power projects and other infrastructure projects. Unfortunately, I was downsized a couple months ago, and now I am at a crossroads.

Here are my options as I see them:

I could go back to school. I'm interested in exploring more of the technical side of hydrology and geology. I feel like there are holes in my learning, and I'd like to take more math, fluvial processes, minerology, structure, chemistry, and allied sciences. I'd also be interested in taking plant taxonomy ('cause I am teh worst botanist ever (more of which later)) and Spanish (because I am hoping to bird the bejeebus out of teh neotropics in teh next decade). I don't think I could get into a master's program without doing more undergraduate work and building my GPA. But I'm kind of wondering what new doors more schooling would really open.

I could go to work as a soil scientist for the Feds. I'd probably want to be more of a soil conservationist than a soil scientist. However, most of the soil jobs seem to be out in BFE.

My mom's an editor with an environmental consulting firm in Northern California and she could get me a job doing editing there no worries. I don't think I could get a job doing editing anywhere else because I lack experience.

I could just go with the status quo and get a job doing consulting biology.

I sort of hate consulting biology. First of all, I'm really not a biologist. I'm really good at wetland soils and hydrology (two out of three!), but I am hard pressed to identify any plants beyond like, the most basic level. Fir, pine, manzanita, willow, comp, grass, little forby jobber, and so on. I'm an ace birder, but I don't have permits for anything. I don't know shit about mammals, fish, inverts, or herps other than what I've picked up on the job. Therefore, most of what I write feels really half-assed. Which isn't to say that I think I'm doing a worse job than anyone else, I just have the good sense to feel ashamed of the substandard quality of my work.

Also, and I hate to say this, but most of my colleagues have been total dumbshits. I deeply suspect that most of what THEY write is half-assed, but they don't even have the sense to know that what they write is crap.

I just feel like a cog in the bullshit machine. And the worst part about it is working on projects you hate. I've been out to some beautiful rangeland areas that some asshole developer wanted to put 5,000 McMansions on. And you go back to the office and write the report like that's going to be the only development in the area, when you know that there are all kinds of other developments proposed for the next parcel over, and the parcel beyond that one, and the parcel beyond that one. It makes you feel like an enemy of the environment, a poser, and a hypocrite, but it pays the bills.

The argument in favor of working for the enemy is that I feel like I do have some integrity, and maybe it's better to have someone with some integrity doing the work instead of someone who's a total sellout. But maybe I'm kidding myself, and I'm a sellout and I don't know it.

The additional wrinkle here is that I currently live in Santa Barbara, which is SWEET, but the only jobs here are consulting biology jobs. I really don't want to move.

So what are my options? Tell me something good here.

Also, what do you guys do, and are you happy with it?

[franksolich]

Well, now, it appears to me that someone with a degree in soil science has all sorts of opportunities.

Far far far more opportunities than someone with a degree in wymyn's studies.

Or even my own college degree.

I think there's lots and lots of good opportunities for the primitive, but the primitive is being too demanding.