By Anonymous, a PhD student from McGill University

My lifelong tenet is that learning follows experience. This tenet has kept me moving throughout my career as an ecologist. If the chance for a new experience presents itself, I will take it nine times out of ten. This tendency has given me experience in wildlife conservation, teaching, park management, backcountry leadership, and learning on the job. During “gaps” in my academic resume, I kept occupied by dozens of odd jobs. Though still young, my willingness to experience has taken me to Alabama, Maine, California, Washington, Honduras, Colorado, Barbados, Panama, Quebec, and many places in between. 

This semester, I experienced the Neotropical Environment Option. This program, designed to give students a diverse knowledge of social and environmental topics in Panama and the neotropics, delivered. We traveled daily between deep lowland tropical rainforests, high cloud forests, Pacific and Atlantic. To experience the discomfort of heat, biting insects, stinging corals, salt, sun, and chaotic schedules was expected. All to be savored. All to bring us fully into the contrasting moments of equal and opposite wonderment. Wonderment for botany, coral ecology, fish behavior, entomology, paleontology, history, environmental justice, forest management, ethical social science, natural resource management approaches, inequality, natural history, climate change, and the connections between it all. 

And what did these experiences teach me? Luckily, I journaled every day so as not to forget. 

• Field work is difficult no matter what taxa you are studying or in what terrain.
• Rest days are always necessary. Take care of your body and mind first.
• Bees are more intelligent, diverse, and fascinating than you think.
• There are ALWAYS more questions to ask.
• A career is not a prison. You can always change.
• Marine field work requires intense specialized knowledge, physical stamina, and skill.
• Walking around a town is the best way to get to know a place, even if you do not speak the language.
• Sustainable agroforestry is possible. 
• There are so many knowledgeable, diverse, and kind people out there who are passionate to share their expertise. 
• Free diving is my new favorite activity. 

This list is far from exhaustive. I am still coming up with new lessons from this experience. The most substantial lesson, the one that I needed to learn more than anything: There is hope to turn things around and preserve what is there. No matter how bleak the state of the natural world seems. Despite the feelings of futility that all conservationists feel. 

NEO showed me that there is a huge community of passionate, intelligent, determined people who are dedicated to making positive environmental change. Although conservation is a daunting and sometimes lonely career, we as conservationists are not as isolated in our passions as we think. To be able to call conservation your career is a privilege. Let’s use this privilege to do the best that we can. And giving our best is enough. 

About the author: The author has requested to publish anonymously.