Beyond Academia in Earth, Environmental, & Planetary Sciences

Cassie Petoskey:
Hi, everyone. Thanks for being here. I'm Cassie Petoskey. I use she or they pronouns. And I'm the Director of the Waldron Student Alumni Connections Program, where our goal really is to help Weinberg College students explore career options through connecting with alumni. So thank you so much for our alumni for being here with us today.
And we're going to spend some time. Amelia is going to take us through some prepared questions for our speakers. We'll get into it. Are you okay? I feel like I always talk at the worst time too. So no worries. And then we're going to save plenty of time for questions at the end. And Shai is going to moderate questions from you all. So please, we'll save plenty of time for that as you all are writing [inaudible 00:00:44] down throughout. And I think that's it without... And of course, thank you to Geoclub for partnering with us on this event. Very excited to have you all bring this idea forward and work with you all on this. So thank you. And without further ado, I'll pass to Amelia and Shai. Why don't you introduce yourselves first and then we'll go to our alumni speakers? [inaudible 00:01:06].

Amelia:
Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. I'm Amelia. I'm a second year. I'm a Bio and Earth Science... Technically, Earth Science minor, but whatever. And I'm the president of Geoclub. And I'm so grateful that you all attended this event. We really wanted to be able to show people what Earth and Environmental Sciences can do for you in the future and expand the idea of there are [inaudible 00:01:29].

Shai:
Hi, guys. I'm Shai. I use he/him pronouns. I'm a senior majoring in Earth and Planetary Science. I'm education chair of Geoclub. So also very glad to see so many [inaudible 00:01:40] here, and I'm excited to hear all the wisdom that our alumni have to offer. Thank you guys.

Amelia:
Yeah. So to start us off with some questions, can you share with us more about your industry and current job function and introduce yourselves while you're at it? And if you could speak to the microphone, that would be wonderful.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah. We're recording it. Sorry. Seems silly.

Max Jones:
Sure. Yeah. My name is Max Jones. And speaking of the future of your careers, I'm the near future because I graduated in June actually. So I am a class of 2024. I'm currently a Master's student at the Chicago Botanic Garden and I'm working as a conservation biologist and wildlife biologist. And so right now I've just returned from seven months of fieldwork in Panama doing work on forest fragmentation and animal movements. And I'm super excited to talk about all that and then also how I've kind of gotten to this point, especially so fresh out of undergrad. And then moving forward, I'm also going to be moving to Germany this summer to work with some scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior to keep working there. And so I'm going to be talking mostly I guess about my time networking at Northwestern and then how Earth and Planetary Science and Environmental Science has led me to the strange position I'm in right now.

Margaret Isaacson:
Hey, everyone. So my name's Margaret Isaacson. I graduated in 2015. It's been a minute. I'm a graduate of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, and currently I am a conservation and outdoors division manager at the Parks and Rec department in Evanston. So I'm pretty local. My position title is a long way of saying that I oversee our local nature center and all the programs that we run out of that facility along with the park services team that oversees the maintenance of the public restrooms around town and the athletic fields around town and picnic areas. So happy and excited to be here and talk to you all. And I think what I'll focus on, but happy to answer any questions, is how my experience in the department brought me to maybe an unusual career path and sector of the workplace, which is parks and recreation.

Amelia:
Thank you. So what were some of the impactful classes or experiences for you in your undergrad at Northwestern that led you to pursue your career path?

Margaret Isaacson:
Max, I feel like yours is in more recent memory, but I'll dig back.

Max Jones:
Okay. For mine, I think I'd probably start with saying ironically Spanish. Spanish led me down a snowball into this world of Latin American conservation that I've found myself in. And it was really that triggered the start, but then also I had everyone in the Environmental Science Department urging me to branch out and try new things, which was something super interesting. And so then specifically which classes, I'd say the GIS class with Elsa Anderson that I took was incredibly impactful in my senior year. That's been a skill that I've used all the time going forward. And just knowing these different kinds of programs like that have made it really easy for me to quickly pick up new kinds of analysis or feel comfortable going into different fields that I might not have experience with at the time.
There was that, and then I'd also say my community ecology class from... That one's with the Biology Department, although I think Environmental Science students often take that too. That one just exposed me to a lot of different kind of paper readings. And so at first I thought those classes were very unfocused, but then I realized the goal is to expose you to so many different kinds of scientific thought that then you can... You find that one paper that you get really, really into for some reason and then that ends up being the rabbit hole that you follow down into the career that you want.

Margaret Isaacson:
The first thing that I'm thinking about back 10 years ago is some of the field experiences that I went on with the various classes, everything from Earth 201, that [inaudible 00:05:45] like trip, which hopefully is still around, to doing lake sediment coring up in Wisconsin on a frozen lake in the middle of February. That's right. Maggie remembers that hopefully. It was very cold. It was very, very cold that day. A lot of dancing on the ice to keep warm. So these experiences in the outdoors, they built on my passion for camping, my passion for spending time in the outdoors, but I got to be doing important science while I was out there.
And now as a parks and recreation professional, my job is primarily outdoors and the goal of our Ecology Center here in Evanston is to inspire families, young kids, adults, people of all ages to spend time outdoors, whether that's through a quick class, through a whole summer of summer camp. But really it was those experiences doing science outside that showed me what can I do to inspire other people. "My professors are inspiring me now. Is there something more local, maybe less academic that I can have an impact on a broad range of people?" So I think those experiential moments were really important for me and really didn't guide me directly to parks and rec, but reinforced my passion for the outdoors and for inspiring that in others.

Amelia:
Max, you mentioned a bit about how your connections and networking that you had here are important. I don't know if that's applicable to you, but if you'd share a bit more about that, I'd love to hear.

Max Jones:
Yeah. Sorry. Give me just a second. You guys, it really was like... It's a funny thing on how you get started in these things because it's never the path you originally take that ends up to where you end up in the end. Because I think I started with one of the professors who was teaching an introductory climate change course my freshman year. I worked with her on processing photos of trees for a while and then that slowly led me to meet the people at the Chicago Botanic Garden. And then even though my research interests don't perfectly align with them, I did a thesis with Trish, with Patricia Betos, as my undergrad thesis advisor. And Trish is a mover. She loves pushing people to go do more and more and more.
So I ended up going and doing a thesis in Costa Rica for my undergrad field work. And this is what I mean by the snowballs because I started taking photos of trees and then I ended up in Costa Rica doing sea turtle work with Trish and then from there I met the people that I worked with on this project as well. So that's the number one thing that I always recommend is don't be afraid to follow a lead, even if you don't know exactly where it's going to lead you to in that moment.

Margaret Isaacson:
Yeah. I could add a little bit to that. Not so much networking here on campus, but just post-grad when you start out at an opportunity. My first job was a part-time... My first job after post-grad was a part-time position with the Ecology Center. It was limited hours. I was learning on the job how to lead programs, completely new in the environmental education field, but I then left and came back two times and in four different positions leading to the one that I'm in now.
So I think, like you said, following a lead, even if you don't know necessarily where it's going to take you, building relationships with the folks that you work with, the folks that... Whether it's academic or professional or just a summer experience, those are connections that you're going to take with you along the way. They might be people that you meet again. They might not. But like you said, Max, it's going to take you somewhere. And I think I wouldn't be where I was now if I didn't have the Ecology Center, for example, in the back of my mind and just building back towards that in some ways once I found something that I was excited about.

Amelia:
That's great. Thank you. What has surprised you about what you learned or did during your school days that helped you in your work today? I hope something you learned helps today.

Margaret Isaacson:
I can speak to that a little bit. So when I was an undergrad, I had two majors. I studied French all the way at the south end of campus, and then I was up here at the north end of campus doing Earth and Planetary Sciences. And having those two degrees really helped me flex some of my critical thinking skills. I wasn't always focused on data and reading scientific papers. I was also reading French literature and writing papers about French literature.
I'm not fluent in French. I'm not using that skill very much. But that flexibility between two different majors or two different ways of using your brain has really served me well in how I organize my time at work, how I manage my staff, how we think critically about designing a new program in Evanston or figuring out how to make the bathrooms clean. Somebody's got to do it, so figuring out an efficient way to do that. I think the work ethic that you learn and practice at Northwestern is going to serve you no matter what. Maybe, Max, you have more data analyst that you use in your day-to-day than I do necessarily, but I think it's those soft skills and those hard skills that are going to come into play.

Max Jones:
No. I 100% agree with the soft skills part because so many of the random little things you do day-to-day as a college student end up translating in very strange ways to you being in a post-grad experience. For example, I never played soccer before, but then I played IM Leagues here and then all of a sudden, I felt very comfortable going and playing IM Leagues in Panama and that was my resource to going to meet people. And so you do just learn very good social skills in college, I'd say, that then translate very well to being outside. And I think that's especially true at Northwestern when you're surrounded by people who generally like to have conversations because sometimes you come across someone that might not want to engage with you in a way that you want to engage with them and so you have now this kind of depth of experience of having good productive conversations with people and that you can use going forward. And that's something that I always found super useful. I also took a drawing class that I found really productive here. Yeah.

Amelia:
So sort of going back to the networking question, what advice might you have for networking within your individual industries?

Max Jones:
Do not be afraid to cold call people. That's the number one thing I think, is the worst that can happen is... Honestly the worst that can happen is that they remember your name and that's a best case scenario in most fields because then a few years down the line you can meet them again and be like, "Oh, hi. Do you remember me?" They say yes, then you've won technically. Yeah, because I've also talked to friends about this because they say... Especially in science, people love to collaborate in science. You'll have people wanting to collaborate even when you don't really want to. And so if you just email them and you just express your genuine interest, not just trying to find a job out of it, then I've only had people respond very positively in these scenarios.
And so even if you get told, "No, we don't have an option," a friend of mine once told me that every interview or every kind of reaching out is a networking opportunity, so even if you don't get it, you've done your job for that day at least because then you've met one more person who maybe five years down the line is going to help you out.

Margaret Isaacson:
I would add that more than likely you're going to end up in... You potentially end up in some kind of professional sphere that has conference opportunities, whether that's something that you're attending now or looking to in the future. I was surprised. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was surprised when I got into parks and rec that there's a parks and rec conference. There's an Illinois parks and rec conference. There's a national parks and rec conference. There's so many people in this industry that I can learn from and skills that I never thought I'd even touch. So like Max said, don't be afraid to reach out to people. They're excited to talk about what they do and how they got there and what they want to do. So I think if you don't hear from people right away, it's probably because they're busy, but hopefully they get back to you. It doesn't hurt to email them again. Yeah. Just keep a positive attitude when you're reaching out to folks.

Amelia:
[inaudible 00:14:20] question, what is your favorite thing about your job?

Margaret Isaacson:
Oh, man. There's so many things. I also thought of my least favorite things, but... Well, you guys know I'm in charge of bathrooms now. It's not so glamorous. Gosh. There's so many fun things about parks and recreation. Being able to be outside a lot of the time is pretty great. I do spend a lot of hours behind a desk like anyone, but having our seasonal special events that we get the community out for, building new opportunities too for folks to experience the outdoors. Is really powerful to see the Evanston Environmental Association and the Ecology Center are working on trying to build a new canoe launch so that we can access the canal more easily. It's going to have a really big local impact. And it's just an inspiring process to watch.
There's other parts of my job, like I said, that I never thought I'd be doing, where our building is under construction right now. And I studied Earth and science. I didn't study construction or architecture, but I get to see that whole process play out. And I think you can really see a lot of variety in most professions and learn from each of those experiences. And yeah. Right now, the construction is actually really fun to see play out.

Max Jones:
Yeah. For me, I'd say the collaborative element is something that I really love in my profession. It's the fact that no science is ever done in a bottle, and so you're constantly just meeting with people. It feels like a very creative process as you go through it. So it's always evolving, always adapting. Even the things you think are going to be boring, like sitting on your computer all day, just coding in R, then ends up being like something's going on there. And then you just dive down the rabbit hole and then you text all the other people you're collaborating with. It's like, "Hold on. Am I seeing this correctly?" Hey, I find it very enjoyable the fact that the process is iterative and I always get a chance to learn from other people.
And then, like I said earlier, people love to collaborate. So then I've had really brief meetings where they're just throwing out ideas left and right at me. And the concept of just putting together all of these people's collective knowledge and interests and passion into the project is something that really speaks to me. And then the other thing I'd say is definitely I have a very fieldwork heavy field, and I think that that is something that's I personally enjoy a lot is this balance of I get to do work outside and then I also get to do this collaborative, creative element and bring this... Synthesize it all into a living, breathing work that I can put out into the world afterwards.

Amelia:
Thank you so much. Not to be presumptuous, but I'm seeing some themes between the both of you, which you said you like to be outside and you like to be creative, which I think is awesome. I think that's a thing that a lot of us in the room can relate to. How have your work or how have your values and beliefs influenced how you approach your professional workplace?

Margaret Isaacson:
Oh.

Max Jones:
It's funny. I prepped for this question and I'm still not ready for it.

Margaret Isaacson:
So I spoke to a little bit my passion for the outdoors, passion for outdoor rec, whether that's camping, hiking, backpacking, canoeing. A lot of those things I don't do here in Chicago. There's not too many backpacking routes in Chicago, so I try to get out of town and state for those. But those core values, just spending time outside really inform my day-to-day work, like you said, Amelia. I think even just taking a little break during the workday to get some [inaudible 00:18:04] or planning a professional development program for the Ecology Center staff or the parks and rec department as a whole that gets everyone outside and gets them rejuvenated goes a long way to staff's mental health, having fun in the workplace, being inspired in the workplace, even when we have these boring administrative tasks that we have to do every day. So I think that outdoor passion is really something that's just stuck with me along the way.
And then were it not for the Ecology Center existing in this parks and rec department in Evanston, I wouldn't be able to bring my passion for sustainability to work either. I think sustainability would inform a lot of the things that the department does and that the City of Evanston does. The city has its own sustainability staff. We've got a sustainable waste manager. So I would say the town is progressive in that aspect, but having a center that's dedicated to promoting sustainability and educating folks on sustainability in a fun way, not in like a, "Here's how you recycle. And here's a DIY workshop on how to," I don't know, "Swap your clothes or something with other folks." I think having that focus of a center dedicated to this brings the fun into the Department of Sustainability, and that's been really nice to take from my work in paleo-climatology to, "Okay. What are we doing now and here and in this time to help Earth?"

Max Jones:
I really like what Margaret said about passion driving a lot of the work because I think that's really prominent in this field, especially where passion for the subject matter is really what gets us out of bed in the morning and then gets us to go because not a lot of people choose what we do based on the money or it's not like a career path that's recommended. It's like, "Oh, you should go into Earth and Environmental Sciences because that's a high income field." It's like, "No. We're doing this because we love it." And I do think that that is something that's like... It helps motivate a lot of the work you do and a lot of the challenges you might face along the way. It's like you think that, "At the very least I'm doing this because I love it and not because anyone is telling me I should."

Amelia:
I totally agree. I'm guessing a lot of people in this room also have a passion that leads them to come here. I think I'm out of my questions. Does anyone else have questions that they want to ask the speakers? I mean, I have [inaudible 00:20:42] my paper. Yeah.

Rose:
Yeah. Thank you guys for both being here. My name is Rose. I'm [inaudible 00:20:49] major. I'm a sophomore. I'm kind of curious, when you both were juniors, seniors, what did you think you were going to do and what was the plan that you had in your mind and what were the factors, like, "Oh, grad school. Oh, this, that."?

Max Jones:
Do you want me to start because more recent?

Margaret Isaacson:
Yeah.

Max Jones:
Okay. My journey as an undergrad was pretty funny because I came in as an engineering student. I originally wanted to be an environmental engineer because I come from Kentucky and so then back home you're just pushed to be either a doctor, an engineer or a lawyer. And I was like, "Well, engineer sounds fun."
And then I got here and then I was just surrounded by people who were following passions instead of then just what they wanted to do. And so then I began to explore this career as an ambiguous just environmental researcher in my mind, but I didn't know exactly what that was going to look like and I really didn't know what it was going to look like until very recently. I only started all of my work abroad and then all of my work as a biologist specifically late in my junior year. And so it's one of those things where it's like I feel like a lot of it will take shape in very sudden and dramatic ways. So even if you don't know exactly where you're going, there's going to be some kind of event that triggers it and it all starts moving into place in that way. At least that's how it happened for me.

Margaret Isaacson:
I remember my advisor asking, "What is your dream job?" And I didn't really have a good answer. I wasn't ready, like, "Oh, I want to be teacher," or like, "I want to get a PhD and go into academia," or, "I want to do this type of research forever because I'm super excited about." And I was like, "Well, I like to spend time outside. Maybe a park ranger." I literally oversee staff called park rangers now. So I made it. But I think that brought me to, "Hmm. How can I take..." I really like reading about all this research. I really like digging into it myself. I like looking at under the microscope and making that into a paper. But I didn't see myself necessarily going to grad school. It wasn't like a for sure thing. And it wasn't a certainty for me. It didn't quite set in as that's what I definitely want to do.
But I saw all this cool research and wanted to know, "Well, how do we take all this amazing but very specific research and take it and communicate it to the general public? What are they getting out of all the great things that we do here on campus and elsewhere?" And that took me down the path of environmental education and science communication. I think for a little while I thought, "Oh, I'm going to maybe go and figure how to write and become a science communicator." I found local part-time jobs that were environmental education related because that was going to be how I took my expertise and my knowledge, build on that knowledge in other ways, and then inspire other people to maybe they end up getting a PhD. Maybe it's not me, but it might be them, or they're just excited about being outside and learning a new fact about local wildlife.
So yeah, it was kind of circuitous. And over the last 10 years or so since finding science communication, I've gone more towards the administrative and managerial side, which is also really exciting. I like flexing those muscles and figuring out how to get a team to work all together and put on that science communication. I'm not in front of the campfire group leading the program anymore, and that's kind of a bummer sometimes, but we make it happen as a team. So you discover different talents along the way as well.

Amelia:
That was an awesome answer. Thank you so much. I did realize there's one more question on my paper that Rose's kind of leaned into, which is what do you wish you could tell yourself when you were in student's shoes?

Margaret Isaacson:
Do you wish you could tell yourself last year?

Max Jones:
I know, right? I do wish that... Because it's very natural that while you're wondering if what you're doing is going to work out, then you put a lot of pressure on yourself. It's like, "Why haven't I figured out what I'm going to do next right now?" And over the process of I guess the last year and a half for me, it's very much like a process of it happens. Progress happens very slowly until it just jumps forward. So you're going to feel like you're stuck and then you're repeating the same patterns a lot. It's like, "Why haven't I gotten this next connection yet? Why haven't I figured it out?" And then it really snaps into place when you least expect it.
And so then you finally get that motion forwards and then things start rushing and then life moves faster again, but then it'll slowly trickle back down and then you have to ride the waves of sometimes it moves fast in terms of you're making these good connections and you're moving forward in your projects or in your career, and then other times you have to be very calm and weather the storm a little bit. So I'd say I tell myself to calm down and chill out.

Margaret Isaacson:
I would second that. "Just relax. It's going to work out. Okay?" I think that I was kind of similar in putting a lot of pressure on myself to do well academically. Again, not really thinking about what I wanted to do post-grad until I was in it. But I think just give yourself some grace and be patient with what you do. Work hard, but you can also be patient and not expect that you're going to do the same thing as your colleague or your friend who is in the same department. Your paths could look completely different. Clearly. Ours are completely different.
So talk to your colleagues. Talk to your advisors. See what their experiences are. Ask alumni what their experiences are. But don't think that that is the experience that you have to do or take or follow. There's a lot of options and you can also pivot later. You might get into something right after graduation and then you might find out, "Oh, I'm really good at this one piece of that job and I'm going to pursue that." It's not a straight path. It's not one thing. You can always switch it up. I may switch it up. You never know.

Max Jones:
Yeah. If I can bounce back off that again, it's not comparing yourself to the people around you [inaudible 00:27:34] critical because then you end up in cycles where the person next to you gets a fellowship and instead of being happy for them and interested in it, you're just like, "Oh, damn. Why don't I have a fellowship yet?" And it really is like, yeah, everyone has a different path that they're going to take throughout this and it just feeds into an imposter syndrome if you let yourself make those comparisons.

Margaret Isaacson:
A lot of the staff who come and work at the Ecology Center are recent grads. They come and they do part-time work as program instructors. That's what I started out as. And I think I see in them bringing just so much positivity and excitement about their work. I think that's a really great thing to grab on when you're just starting out after graduating in your career. You're going to feel great about yourself if you're doing something you're excited about. You're going to meet people and learn what they do. And the staff that I work with, they work so hard, they cobble together multiple part-time jobs. They're pulling experience from multiple places and it's getting them where they need to be. Not to say that that's the path for everyone, but I think it's just important to keep a positive attitude while you're in it and know that you're not stuck when you start one thing. You don't have to do that for the rest of time.

Max Jones:
That was beautiful.

Amelia:
That was beautiful. Thank you. Shai, you want to keep taking questions?

Shai:
Yeah. For sure. Did anybody have any other questions they want to ask alumni? Sure.

Speaker 7:
Do you guys feel like your identity ties into what you do? Or do you guys feel like you found parts of yourself doing your work? Even like you said, you kind of trialed a little bit. Do you feel like that kind of connected you more to who you are and even to [inaudible 00:29:27] up to what you do?

Max Jones:
Yeah. It kind of radically changed how I viewed myself in a way because, yeah, so I'm from Kentucky. I'm from a low-middle-income family. And so coming here I was very out of my elements it felt like a lot of times, surrounded by very elite academic institutions. So I went through a lot of my first second year with a chip on my shoulder. But then I go start working in Latin America where scientists there have to work twice as hard as I do just because they don't speak the same language. And then all of a sudden all of that feelings of angst, I guess, flooded away because I was like everything that I've been angry about or anxious about has just been minuscule on a larger scale. Yeah. I say working in international communities like that has very much changed my perception on life and science and as an industry as a whole.

Margaret Isaacson:
I would add the industry that I'm in, parks and rec, is very service oriented and I've learned so much about customer service, not from a restaurant job, but from answering 311s and... So. I don't know if everyone knows what 311. You guys know what 311 is, right? Okay. Maybe. Yes. That's Maggie, right? Are you sending me the 311s? No. But I think I've found that it makes me happy to provide a service for a community and you feel fulfilled when you... Even if it's something unglamorous, like cleaning bathrooms, you still feel like, "Oh, I'm impacting people on a regular basis, on a daily basis. And with my small work or local work, it's still important." So I think finding your impact is really a powerful thing,

Speaker 7:
[inaudible 00:31:29] but they take... Not take away from your [inaudible 00:31:31], but like you said, having that chip on your shoulder when you look back and now that you fulfilled almost in what you're doing, [inaudible 00:31:38].

Margaret Isaacson:
I was so stressed back then. You don't need to be stressed. It's okay though. You can be stressed. College is a stressful time. There's a lot going on. You guys have a lot on your plate. You're managing a lot of learning. You're managing a lot of growth. And that's just going to continue. But you're able to take that on. And this is just one experience that's going to teach... College is just one experience that's going to teach you that you're capable of taking that on. You're just going to keep taking on new things.

Shai:
[inaudible 00:32:13] question? Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 8:
How do you guys feel about your work-life balance or just your outdoorsy hobbies come [inaudible 00:32:25]?

Max Jones:
Do you want to say?

Margaret Isaacson:
Sure. My work-life, so... Okay.

Speaker 8:
Your balance is [inaudible 00:32:36] by [inaudible 00:32:37] having outdoorsy hobbies and also that in a job.

Margaret Isaacson:
Oh, I see what you're saying. Interesting. No. Work is still work, even when it's outside, but it's nice when it's outside because you get a little break from your desk. No. I think work-life balance is probably something that you all are learning even now. And it's one of those things that you're going to get into the work world and it's going to look a little bit different. You're going to be tired. But I think if you find the right gig or the right job that's going to be able to build that in and still make time for yourself. And it's important to make time for yourself even in your work. I'm not sure if that was your question, but... Yeah. Do you want to?

Max Jones:
Yeah. I think I understand exactly what your worry is here because I love outdoors. I love all things nature related. But I have been surrounded by people sometimes when I'm working where it's like we're in the field 10 hours a day and then they come back, they're like, "Wow. That was great, wasn't it?" And I was like, "I'm tired. I want to go home," even though I love what I've done, but then you do come across a lot of... Not a lot, but sometimes you do find scenarios where the people you're with don't view what they're doing necessarily as work. They also view it as very fun. And so then you have to set your own boundaries there where you have to be like, "Yes, I enjoy this work a lot, but this is not what I want to be doing in my free time right now. I don't want to give up another afternoon of my time to go work, even though I enjoy my work."
So I have found myself in those dilemmas before where it's like you really enjoy being outside, but also after your 15th hour of it, you're just like, "Okay. Let me go read a book or something."

Shai:
Good question. Do you have any more question?

Cassie Petoskey:
I think [inaudible 00:34:28] question about the goal day-to-day. I'm guessing every day is different, but what are you doing in [inaudible 00:34:36]? What are you doing in your outside? What are the activities? And how often? Like 15 hour a day you're outside? That's [inaudible 00:34:47]. What does that look like a day? Walk us through a day.

Max Jones:
Okay. For me, well, my day-to-day has just changed dramatically because I finished up my field season, but when I was in the field, it would be we're up at 5:45, quick breakfast, and then we go out into the forest, and then... I was setting up camera traps and so we were specifically looking at arboreal cameras and arboreal species, like monkeys and stuff. And so we would set up cameras in the trees. And so to do that, we would have to climb trees. I'd be climbing trees myself. And so that sometimes could entail... If one tree could take almost six hours sometimes just because you'd have to take a slingshot and then put a line up in the tree. I don't want to get too into it, but...

Cassie Petoskey:
[inaudible 00:35:32].

Max Jones:
"Get into it. Get into it." Okay. Do we want the break-

Cassie Petoskey:
We want to know how you climb.

Max Jones:
Okay. So you take a big slingshot, and then you shoot a weight with a string on it over a branch that you think can support your weight. And then you... I say think because you test it. And then you tie a climbing rope. You pull the climbing rope over. And then I just hook into a harness and then a few climbing equipments. And then I go up. And then sometimes, depending on if the tree is difficult, if there's ants in it or something, it can take me a few hours up there too. Then I took my data and then I'd come back down. And the idea was always we would do two a day. Sometimes we would push for three a day. And so that could take like... We could be working from sunrise right up until sunset. There was a few times when I was still up in a tree and I'd had to use a headlamp to finish up up there because we were just pushing so hard by the end of the day.

Margaret Isaacson:
Very cool.

Max Jones:
Now-

Margaret Isaacson:
Can you teach a tree climbing program for the Ecology Center, please?

Max Jones:
I'd love to.

Margaret Isaacson:
Perfect. We'll talk later. I want to tell you what my day-to-day looked like when I first started out and then where I am now because it's very different. When I was first starting on as a program instructor, so post-grad, I would come to work, I would write a lesson plan or write up a program, decide what materials I needed, gathered them. I took care of animals on a daily basis that we had for educational purposes. And then often I would be going out and leading that program. Sometimes it was a family campfire. Sometimes it was a critter visit, where I'm holding up animals and showing them to kids and letting them pet them. Super fun.
Now my work is a little bit more behind the scenes. So I do a lot of emailing and a lot of administrative tasks. I coordinate with a lot of different departments, whether that's greenways, to make sure that the athletic fields are ready for the sports season, or touching base with my seasonal staff to make sure that they're doing their rounds on the lakefront bathrooms, or planning, budgeting and meeting with the program coordinators who are actually planning programs. So it's a lot of, like I said, more backend work and making sure that when we present these programs through the program instructors, the position that I used to do, to the public or through summer camp, that it's kind of ready to go, we're using taxpayer money wisely and well, and that the city has services that are meeting their needs and expectations. So it's a lot of email and payroll and some unglamorous things, but we also get outside occasionally.

Shai:
Do other people have question?

Speaker 9:
Well, with the... Thank you so much for being here for answering all our questions, but with the summer coming around, I'm sure many of us in this room are looking for internships and jobs and any experience in the field. Where do you recommend we look? And then a follow-up that would be how do you prepare for interviews?

Margaret Isaacson:
If you're local, Chicago Environmental Network has a ton of opportunities, wide-ranging, seasonal, full-time, part-time. That's a great site. Yeah. Of course. Chicago Environmental Network. And they have a job board. I think they also have volunteer postings. We always post our positions there and all of the area nature science adjacent companies and organizations post on there as well.

Shai:
We'll find that [inaudible 00:39:22] a follow-up.

Speaker 9:
Thank you.

Max Jones:
I'd say it depends a lot on what kind of work you want to get into, but I know that there's a really good job listing board. It's like UT Austin or something. I'm sure Maggie or Trish know it. But it really kind of depends on what you want to get into. Historically, the Scientists in the Parks have been a very competitive but credible internship. I don't know if they're operating this summer because of everything happening. The Shedd Aquarium I've also heard has some pretty interesting opportunities for research assistants over the summer. I had a friend who did actually like scuba diving with them and then went to found mussels in one of the Chicago rivers or something. It was pretty cool. And then I've also heard some good things about the Audubon Society. Sometimes they periodically have stuff around here.
Besides that, I'd cold call or cold email professors because a lot of them have... Either they directly have a project that they might want you to work on or sometimes they'll redirect you to Master's students or PhDs. Right now in the listserv that I'm on in the Chicago Botanic Garden, we get emails forwarded to us from students at Northwestern being like, "Hi. Is anybody looking for help this summer? I'd love to work."

Margaret Isaacson:
I think I was on some environmental listserv of some kind. I'll try to track it down and send it to Cassie. And this was a while ago. But I remember... Gosh. Anyway. It took me to Great Basin Institute, which is out west, but they do all kinds of research and experiential education in the western states. I did that for a summer. One year I was basically a camp counselor, but they also have a lot of research positions as well that are seasonal.

Max Jones:
Lincoln Park Zoo also has some really cool stuff down there. The Urban Wildlife Division is... I wanted to work with them every single year I was an undergrad. It just never worked out. Yeah.

Shai:
[inaudible 00:41:16]. Do they have any other questions [inaudible 00:41:16]?

Amelia:
How do we take care of the internship [inaudible 00:41:19]?

Speaker 11:
When was your last interview?

Margaret Isaacson:
What was that?

Speaker 11:
[inaudible 00:41:27].

Margaret Isaacson:
My last interview was two years ago, a year and a half. Yeah. So pretty recent. The way I prepared for that interview, I had a little insight being already in the department and the division that I was applying for a promotion. So I kind of knew some of the questions that they might ask me, but you can... The way that I did it is I like to think of questions that I might be asked, go ahead and answer them and just write down ideas and thoughts. For my most recent position, I also thought about what I would want as a manager. So I was applying for the position that had been overseeing what I... That's so confusing.
I was a program coordinator and I applied for a promotion. So I thought, "As a program coordinator, what would I want to see in a manager? And what projects would I want to prioritize?" And I brainstormed those. But yeah, just thinking through questions that they might ask. Most interviews will ask some of those classic questions. They're always going to start out with, "Why are you applying to this job?" So your elevator pitch is really important and can speak to your passion and also experience. Yeah. Just jotting down some notes. That works for me. Maybe it doesn't work for everyone, but that's what I did.

Max Jones:
I haven't been in a lot of interviews at this stage of my career, honestly. Most of my interviews have been very informal conversations. And so I think that's just by luck how I've moved forward. Right now, I just haven't had any interviews, to be honest. So think Margaret's advice is sage.

Margaret Isaacson:
I guess I could add more. Yeah. I also have done a lot of interviews where I didn't get the job too. So sometimes you just don't know exactly what they're looking for, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that you're not experienced and that you're not knowledgeable of what you do. It just might not be what they're looking for for that position, or someone has just a little bit more in a particular area that they're excited about. I've also been on the other side of interviews where I get to see all the candidates and hear what they have to offer and see what does it look like for our department if we hire this person instead of this person and they have different experience and we're not really sure how to staff this new position, and the interviewees inform the position.
So that can happen as well, where it's not necessarily just... Sometimes it's based on a feeling a little bit, which sounds kind of crazy, but... Yeah. Been on both sides. I think you can practice a lot for an interview. You can hone your speaking skills. You can keep your answers brief but interesting and show your passion, and then just know that you're going to do interviews and some of them are going to work out and some of them aren't. And that's okay.

Amelia:
[inaudible 00:44:31] just kind of silly. Do people ever reference the TV show in your workplace?

Margaret Isaacson:
All the time. One of my co-workers has Leslie Knope on her desktop. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

Amelia:
[inaudible 00:44:46].

Margaret Isaacson:
No. There are moments where we have situations we're like, "This could be a Parks and Rec episode. We should just start our own show." Yeah.

Cassie Petoskey:
Thank you both so much for being here. And I know we have a few more minutes, so students, if you all have the questions or just want to make connections, we'll share out LinkedIn profiles after, but I encourage you to come up and chat with the alumni for a few minutes here. But really thank you all so much for coming out. Thanks, Geoclub, for bringing forward this idea. And thanks to Max and Margaret for being here. So...

Amelia:
Thanks again.

Shai:
Thanks [inaudible 00:45:28].

Cassie Petoskey:
[inaudible 00:45:28].