{"id":79976,"date":"2018-09-28T14:11:06","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T21:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=79976"},"modified":"2018-09-28T14:11:06","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T21:11:06","slug":"tell-me-what-your-internship-was-about-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=79976","title":{"rendered":"“Tell me what your internship was about again?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today – my last day of work – is one of the rare days that I am sitting inside at a desk.\u00a0 I sat down to write a fitting conclusion to the last five months, which is every bit as difficult as it sounds. \u00a0I decided to start by making a graph.\u00a0 To anyone who knows me well, this would come as no surprise \u2013 my background is in quantitative biology, and I am a big nerd about data visualization.\u00a0 As silly as it sounds, I wanted to answer the question: what exactly have I been doing for five months?<\/p>\n

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In short, I have been treating weeds and collecting seeds.\u00a0 I have learned this summer that the hard work of creating and managing healthy ecosystems requires dedicated people on the ground doing work that \u2013 if I am being honest \u2013 can often by repetitive and tedious.\u00a0 However, I have gained some valuable skills during this process: plant identification, navigating and recording data with a handheld GPS, and herbicide application, to name a few.\u00a0 I even got to help mark trees for a timber sale (in case you were wondering what went under that “other” category).\u00a0 In addition, I got to spend my days in some truly beautiful places.<\/p>\n

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While collecting seed from Physocarpus capitatum, or Pacific ninebark, we came across this wonderful, quiet section of the North Umpqua River.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Another beautiful vista while on the hunt for some native seed.<\/p><\/div>\n

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It may be burned, but in the year since the Horse Prairie fire this forest has regained a lot of life and beauty.<\/p><\/div>\n

Spending all of my time outdoors gave me a greater appreciation for the conservation work that I am doing alongside so many other interns, volunteers, and professionals past and present.\u00a0 As often as I found myself in tedium, I also found myself reflective and immensely satisfied to be a part of something much bigger than my small efforts.\u00a0 That kind of perspective helped me stay patient with some of my more unexciting tasks, like pulling out false brome or driving all day to search for native plant populations.<\/p>\n

I moved out to Oregon after graduating from college with two goals in mind: I wanted to refine my research interests before I committed to a graduate program and gain experience working with a federal agency.\u00a0 I have really enjoyed working with such dedicated and good-natured people here in the Roseburg office, and I will be sad to leave the BLM \u2013 for the time being, anyway.\u00a0 I would certainly like to work with a federal agency again after my experience here.\u00a0 As for my research interests, I have a much better idea of what I want to study going forward, and I am currently in the process of talking to potential advisors and applying to graduate schools.\u00a0 Working on BLM land has gotten me interested in the ways that changes in landscapes \u2013 particularly human driven land use changes \u2013 drive community composition and overall ecosystem stability, and I want to apply ecological data analysis and modelling tools to explore this.\u00a0 I hope that I will soon be pursuing my Master\u2019s and doing research along those lines.<\/p>\n

I am grateful for the opportunities I had to explore Oregon and contribute to conservation efforts out here.\u00a0 Although I am ready to move on and get back to school, I certainly will not forget the valuable experiences and new skills that I have gained.\u00a0 Now, before it starts raining again, it is time for me to leave the Pacific Northwest.\u00a0 Until next time!<\/p>\n

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Our Botany team at the Roseburg District BLM.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today – my last day of work – is one of the rare days that I am sitting inside at a desk.\u00a0 I sat down to write a fitting conclusion to the last five months, which is every bit as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79976"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79976"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79984,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79976\/revisions\/79984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}