Environmental Careers and Internships - Lab Report Example

?Assignment Assignment The first tele an introduction to environmental careers and internships poses various questions regarding the baseof environmental studies, what it is, and developing an academic plan with respect to a career in the field. The environment has a vast number of opportunities especially in today’s world where alternative energy sources are required and food crops and the agricultural sector is one of the aspects of livelihood that man is primarily dependent on. Environmental studies today will largely form the highlight of the world tomorrow, and thus is an extremely lucrative field to work in. Even today, every job that a person has, is somehow or the other related to the environment and thus an environmental studies student needs to evaluate his skills and define his values on a personal as well as societal level. In order to develop an academic plan, a student needs to understand the requirements for transfers to different universities, mainly CSU and UC, which have been explained with respect to the marks, units and courses. Students have been clearly explained regarding how they need to go about understanding the requirements of the various departments within each and every course in these various colleges so that they have options once they get out of school in order to make themselves productive. The A.A degree is then emphasized upon which requires a total of 90 units. The various major and minor environmental studies plans have been talked about and the vitality that an internship holds in the life of a student has been greatly discussed in order to help the students understand that only when they work in various fields will they understand what interests them and what excites them. Therefore, the options that an environmental studies student has have been deliberated upon along with the various credentials associated with each and every course which may be beneficial during the course of his study. Every student needs to check his major requirements as his academic plan will ultimately consist of a GE or general education and a major. Students require a guide and De Anza College provides exactly that for them to be lead towards the various programs and questions were encouraged greatly. The teacher again and again highlighted the need for preparing a strong mission statement because that in it would act as a blueprint for the student towards his course achievement. A tremendous amount of careers in the environmental studies field was talked about like the jobs in fields of recycling, energy, agriculture etc. and how each student can finally contribute towards fostering the environment and making a difference. Teachers from universities like the San Jose University spoke about the various departments and courses that they offer as well as the areas of expertise that they excel in and unique features of their programs which include an excellent atmosphere for learning as well as the personal attention provided to each and every student and the internships that they are entitled to as part of the program. The environmental studies degree is very flexible because there are various job opportunities and so students are taught to be focused but be light on their feet in order to move from one field to another under the same branch. The second class mostly emphasized on the various careers that a student can get into, taking into account the internships that one must undergo before associating himself with a particular job; for example an energy management advocate, biologist working in various fields, undertaking work in the biodiversity etc. and time must be spent reviewing various books in order to work towards the final journal which would include the path that each student would want to finally undertake instead of simply juggling the various options. A concrete academic plan consists of focusing on a single area which throughout the course would be made. Various organizations like eco.org were talked about with respect to job opportunities and a guest discussion by Virginia and Rosanna helped the students gain an insight into the various career opportunities which involve energy conservation as well as other fields of utility. The two learned teachers talked about two aspects of getting into an environmental job; either staying close to the customer or staying close to the money with the help of the job’s policy, resources, time and labour required, as well as the end product and how it affects the environment as well as the customer because any job in the environmental field requires being hired by various companies, agencies and people to efficiently carry work out. There are a number of internships related to various companies where research is required by students to understand the energy credits used by a home or an office and solutions of lowering the same to gain maximum efficiency and pay the least amount possible where the experience and not money should be the higher priority of the students. Depending on the needs of the people, students may or may not get paid for internships because the ultimate goal is to get a job done and add it to one’s curriculum vitae because the experience in itself helps a student to understand what he wants to get out of the job and whether or not he wants to go ahead with it later in life with respect to his job. The aim is to thus control the internship according to the student’s needs and volunteer according to his personal interests so that he is able to do a better job as well as incorporate the same aspects later. During the course of the entire class, examples were taken as to how students may intern in various fields and understand the practical aspect of their subjects better. This is done in order to apply the theories that they learn during their course into practical application from time to time so that fresher ideas form within the confines of their mind and also provide them with technical management expertise because the final policy under environmental studies is to integrate sustainability in every possible field. The level of organization that a student works with does not make a difference until and unless he is personally happy with the work that he is contributing towards the environment. All these aspects have been well highlighted during the course of this class. The third class focuses mainly on the kind of career paths that students would want to begin walking towards as even though they might not be completely sure of what they want to do, they need to have a clear idea by this time of the field that they want to enter into with respect to environmental studies. Various websites for post graduate as well as under graduate degrees were discussed during the course of the class with respect to the potential careers in various subjects that one could take up. There are a number of minor subjects that one may study along with the major in case of indecisiveness in order to narrow down the subjects and courses and be a part of a program. The next aspect discussed was writing mission statements which consist of all the skills and values of a student which assess him and can be portrayed in front of the academic institution that he would like to apply to. Various mission statements from other students that applied to different environmental programs and were accepted were also distributed and discussed with the students. David Blackburn from the National Park Service was also a part of the class as he explained the services that rangers and managers of parks provide. He spoke about the various resources present in the parks and the responsibilities that a ranger has, and the public has towards maintenance and restore work. He further discussed the other career options available in the same field with respect to curating, managing, scientifically classifying the various resources in the parks and used various examples like the Chaco National Park, and provided his personal perspective regarding the agency and future employment in the federal field. Next, a workshop on sustainable development was discussed with respect to a campus and a mission statement, values, the importance of sustainability were all debated about and the students were told that their main goals were to finally understand their objectives regarding the environment and what they wanted to ultimately write within their student action plan or environment management plans. For example, a mission statement given by one of the students emphasized on the importance of sustainability, recycling the environment, and limiting her impact on the planet so that resources would be available for the future generations. Thus, the main aim of the entire class was to understand how each student can do his bit to work for the environment and come up with various solutions to save it. Towards the end of it, various opportunities for internships were also discussed taking examples from various agencies and companies so that they may work as well as incorporate the same within their final projects by the end of the course. Read More