As you may or may not know (depending on who is reading this), I will be going back to school this August to finally get my bachelors degree. I've been out of school for a while and am a bit nervous about going back, but also very excited. At the age of nine or ten I began watching Steve and Terri Irwin's television shows and documentaries and I was instantly bitten by the wildlife conservation bug. I couldn't get enough of learning about or being around animals. I still can't. The only really consistent part of my life has been my passion for animals and conservation and I've always wanted to go to school to become a wildlife conservationist. Unfortunately, as usually is the case with childhood dreams, my life took a different route and it didn't look like it was in the cards for me. I was disappointed, but looking back on it I believe it actually worked out for the better because in the mean time I've also developed a passion for environmentalism which pairs perfectly with conservation. I had almost given up on the idea of going back to school, but thankfully things in our life have changed a bit and earlier this year we made the decision for me to finally get my degree. I wasn't sure I was capable of getting a science degree and had several ideas of what I could do instead, but Mike convinced me that nothing was worth going to school for if it wasn't what I really wanted to do. And he was right. I just couldn't be happy knowing I let the opportunity to achieve my dream get away. So I applied, waited an agonizing couple weeks for the "congratulations! you've been accepted" letter, and then finally got to meet with an advisor to sign up for classes. That was a bit of a pain at first (since my associates degree is in English and not Biology there are some required classes I have to take first and a math class I had to test into), but thankfully it is straightened out now and I'm all registered for the fall semester! I will be majoring in Organismal Biology and Public Outreach and minoring in Environmental Studies. I'm so excited about the classes I get to take (animal physiology, ecology, climate change, etc.) and can't wait to start the semester and be even closer to graduating and finally achieving my childhood dream of being a wildlife conservationist! After that I can start making my other childhood dream come true--moving to Australia! lol I'll keep you updated on how things are progressing! :)
-EM
