-: There was an academic track that led me here,
but with my undergrad degree,
I feel like that was just,
it was just following what I loved,
and I loved speaking Spanish.
And then from there, it opened me up
to the next opportunity, the next opportunity.
My grad school gave me the chance
to focus on a significant research topic
and it was kind of like,
I have no idea what environmental justice
looks like back in the U.S. where I'm from.
What does it look like?
Oh, one of the ways it looks like is to understand
Native American environmental issues better,
so what does that look like?
So I used that, I used what was available to me
like an open door for a paper or a project
or something like that to really research
what I had no idea about, but what really interested me.
And then that just set my on my own journey
of uncovering all the things that
I have never had to think about in my life.
So I think that it was through the academic vehicle,
but really it was these concentrated life experiences
and the people that I ended up meeting
and the research that I was able to do
that opened my eyes to what this world could be.
A lot of organizations have internship programs
for current students or recent graduates.
So the Nature Conservancy has the Globe program.
Every summer there's a cohort of students that come in
to the offices around the world
and they'll be embedded within a team
and they'll take on particular projects
so it's a great way to just kinda
become a part of the team and really do substantive work.
That's the thing I like about it
is that you're doing the substantive work.
Because sometimes you never know with internships.
You know, are they just gonna make you file papers?
But I think that organizations are
really realizing the value of the fresh ideas
and perspective of interns as well.
So to have students as part of the team
has been really important to us.
I'd say you could volunteer with community work
in your community.
I'm within an environmental organization,
but a lot of what my team does
is support communities directly.
So we really value people who have that hands-on experience
with maybe it's community environmental education,
maybe it's helping run a community garden.
Maybe it's just an educational program.
But when you have that experience
of how to bring people together, and how to empower others,
I think that that's a major plus,
particularly for what my team focuses on specifically.