College, the Bridge Between my University Education and my Career

by Jacqueline Weber

When I left university after obtaining my Master’s degree, I had never expected to find myself back in school. I found, however, that no part of the year 2020 went as planned, and in September of 2020 I felt very lucky to join the Ecosystem Management Technology program at Fleming College. Although I treasured my university experience, I needed to build a bridge between my transferrable skills and the specific demands of a career in the environmental sector. I’m sure that many other university graduates have felt the same. I believe a college education can be that bridge.
 
In the years leading up to my enrolling at Fleming, I studied Biology at Queen’s University.
My Master’s studies helped me develop as a researcher, a project manager, and a technical writer. Alongside my research I pursued the study of biodiversity and natural history, both to feed my curiosity, and to develop skills for a future working in the environmental sector.
 
The post-graduation job hunt, however, did not go quite as planned. I quickly learned that although I had many transferrable skills, my lack of applied field skills and job-specific training made it hard to break into the environmental sector.
 
It was a conversation I had with a fellow attendee at an electrofishing course in September of 2020 that changed the trajectory of my year and put me on the path to a college education. I had been seeking out courses to expand my environmental skillset all summer, but COVID-19 had thrown a serious wrench in those plans! In talking to my fellow electrofishing trainee about his college experience, I learned that many Ontario colleges offer 8-month programs for university graduates, and the college experience sounded like just the sort of applied learning that I needed to build my skills for the environmental sector.
 
Full of questions, I posted on the Emerging Leaders for Biodiversity Facebook group asking about peoples’ college experiences, and responses came pouring in! Many voices chimed in, saying they had travelled a similar academic path as I had; after graduating from university and wanting to expand their job-specific skills, they joined college programs as a way to prepare themselves for a career in the environmental industry. Over and over I heard praise for the programs at Fleming College. Three days after that fateful electrofishing course, I began the application process and soon I was enrolled in the Ecosystem Management Technology program at Fleming College.

​My first semester at Fleming College has just drawn to a close, and as I plan my job applications, I feel much more prepared for a career in the environmental sector. I can now tell employers that I’m familiar with the process of conducting Environmental Impact Studies, and that I have a working knowledge of habitat assessment protocols like Ecological Land Classification, Ontario Wetland Evaluation System, and Ontario Stream Assessment Protocol. I’ve worked as a student intern for an environmental non-profit and created tools for community outreach and citizen science programs. My transferrable skills have been put to use every day as I learned job-specific skills that could provide the bridge between my university education and a career in the environmental sector.

Fieldwork in the COVID era - collecting benthic invertebrates from a stream at Happy Valley Forest Tract in King, ON.

I’m hopeful that my remaining four months at Fleming will leave me with valuable technical skills, a widened professional network, and a path to a career where I can put all my skills to use in environmental stewardship, helping to create a better and greener future for the human, plant, and animal residents of Ontario.

About the Author

Jacqueline Weber (BSc., MSc.) is currently a student in Ecosystem Management Technology at Fleming College. Jackie is passionate about ecological monitoring and restoration, and looks forward to pairing her scientific background with her practical skills as she begins her career in the environmental sector. In her free time Jackie loves to hike, grow way too many plants, and photograph the wealth of wildlife that lives in the City of Toronto’s ravine system.