Working at Wild Wonders for the past 4 weeks has helped open my eyes to the numerous paths I can take for a career in wildlife. I spoke to few interns about their degrees and many of them were biology related but they all differed in some aspect. One intern Jeremiah had told me he only applied to two colleges, UC Davis and Cal Poly Pamona, because they were the only campuses that offered what he looked for in a major/ classes. He got accepted into both and went to ultimately went to Davis, but he gave me some good advice while speaking with him. From speaking to Jackie, I learned that even if you major in one field, you can always switch fields out of college if something isn't what you were looking for. I've made friends with two interns who are seniors at High Tech High Point Loma and High Tech High International and they're each going into some type of biology major at Humboldt State University and UC Davis respectively.
While I really love this line of work, I'm not too sure I would want to sacrifice so much of my life to my job. From what I've seen, keepers and many people who work with animals have to move around constantly looking for the right job for them. They also struggle with pay and benefits. A keeper at Wild Wonders told me that those who work at San Diego Zoo make about 20-22 dollars an hour for 5 days a week. That's around 41 thousand a year. She told me she makes half that at Wild Wonders. She told me she can't complain much though because no matter how tired she is in the morning and how much she doesn't want to come to work, she still will. And no matter how much she has to budget she puts up with it because she loves what she does. That's hard to find. There has to be a way to find work that I genuinely enjoy that doesn't cause me to make sacrifices so important such as pay and stability.
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During my time at Wild Wonders, Linnea and I were tasked with creating a project that would benefit the organization even after we were long gone. One of Wild Wonders main needs is attracting business. While this organization's main purpose is to care for exotic animals that for one reason or another ended up in captivity, all of their revenue to pay for the food, supplies, and staff needed to carry this out come from private tours or show bookings. Along with gaining revenue, these also fulfill part of their mission statement which is to educate the public about the wildlife they have. We met with our mentor Jackie Navarro and discussed how we could do this while using our own skill sets. She had asked us what our strong-suits were, mine being photography and Linnea's being editing, Jackie told us that Wild Wonders really needed to remake their brochure, she felt it was outdated. She tasked me with photographing the animals and Linnea with putting together the design. Here is our (almost) finished product.
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Leah MaxwellHi, this is my blog where I will be keeping log of my internship experience. Enjoy. ArchivesCategories |