Again.
I've been told that co-op is good for building your resume and figuring out what you want to do with your life, but that more than that, it's good for figuring out what you don't want to do with your life. It's easy to have a really idealized version of what a career in (business/journalism/nuclear physics) would be like, and to think that because you love something in the classroom, or because you've done a part-time stint working in it, you'd be happy doing it for the rest of your life. I came into Northeastern as a biology major, quickly realized that I don't enjoy anything where you're not allowed to poke the experiment, and quickly switched to Environmental Science with a Marine Science concentration because I like when work takes me outdoors.
I did my first co-op in the environmental field, working on renewable energy, and genuinely enjoyed it. (Do you want to hear about acceptable shadow flicker thresholds for wind turbines, Renewable Energy Credits, or required tidal velocity for hydropower to be feasible? No, you probably don't.) I didn't, though, feel insanely passionate about it or completely in love with my job, and I think my generation has somehow gotten the message that if that's not how you feel about your work, then you're not doing the right thing. So I switched my major to Marine Biology, with the intention of pursuing a research career. That led to a two-month internship this summer and then to this co-op, which lead to realizing that this wasn't the right path for me.
I do genuinely enjoy research. It's exciting, it takes you all over the world, and there are moments of absolute triumph when things work out. But I had the chance to have some conversations with people who were very candid about the ups and downs of taking on research as a career. And I've realized that the downs--the stress, the unpredictability, the uncertainty--outweigh the ups. For me. They don't for everyone, and that's great, because we desperately need people doing that work. But I've realized that the kind of happiness I had while I was on my first co-op is pretty unusual for an entry-level job. I loved the company culture and the people at my office; people who work in environmental science all seem to share some common traits. I could see my work making an impact quickly. It wasn't over-the-top stressful, there was no need to spent weeks applying for grants every time I wanted to pursue a new project, and the hours were predictable. I had the time and the financial security to hang out with friends after work, train for 10Ks, leave work at the door at 5:11 pm.
(This may be a case of rose-colored glasses, because friends tell me I was permanently exhausted and always busy during those six months, which may have had something to do with the part-time jobs as a freelance writer, environmental science tutor, and climate action web content developer I was juggling. This wasn't my job's fault, though; this was the fault of being a college student in a town where my contribution of the rent to our three-person apartment is more than the total rent for the three-person apartment where one of my best friends from high schools lives in Washington. Boston is a wild place to go to school.)
I love research in the way I love camping. You travel all over! Crazy things happen! You fall in the mud and can't figure out where to go to the bathroom and you come back with lots of great stories! But that doesn't mean I want to camp all year round. I like knowing that eventually I'll come home and sleep in my own bed, instead of sharing a deflating air mattress inside a collapsing tent. I like my indoor bathroom, even though it's the size of a toaster oven and something in it breaks every couple of months. And even though food tastes much better when it's cooked outside, someone always lights someone's clothes on fire with their s'more, and I wouldn't want to do that for every meal. It's a great adventure, but I wouldn't want to do it for the rest of my life. Marine biology is a major designed to lead to a research career; environmental science can lead in more directions than you might expect. I know a few that I might want to follow. There are a lot of choices ahead.
Exhibit A, because I haven't posted a picture in a while: I wouldn't want to camp for the rest of my life. A rafting trip on the Buffalo National River two summers ago. We had to relocate from our planned campsite because in the aftermath of a hurricane, the site we booked was a swamp. You can see me in the background in a teal shirt, looking sulky because we hadn't eaten lunch yet.
A couple people have asked me whether I'll still be doing the Three Seas Program next year. I waffled on that for a while, but landed on a solid yes. I'll get graduate-level training in statistics, experimental design, conservation biology, and marine and terrestrial ecology. That'll serve me no matter where I go. Plus, my five-year high-school reunion is coming up, and "I just got back from scuba diving every day in Panama, studying tropical coral reef ecology. And how are you?" is a pretty solid answer to "What've you been up to?"
So this Thanksgiving (stories about American Thanksgiving in Ireland coming up next week, because I've talked your ears off enough), I'm grateful for the adventures that come with research, and for having the chance to change my mind.
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