One of the things I remember most of my study abroad experience with SIT in Australia (which was a nontraditional program focused on Conservation and Natural Resource Management), was something a guest lecturer, Peter Cuming, had said (now, I’m paraphrasing here,this was several years ago): “You best help the cause [the environment], by doing what you do best.” At the time, I remember thinking, “How does that work? What if what you are best at is dancing? How does that help the environment?” A year later I graduated from college with a degree in English Literature–which had been my strongest subject–and (like many English majors before me) thought to myself: “Now what? How exactly am I supposed to help the environment with a degree in literature and a love of Chaucer?”
(more…)