Sunday, March 18, 2018

Using my degree

Someone recently made a comment about “not using your degree.” As if getting a PhD was just about jumping through some hoops to get a piece of paper to get a certain job. Rather than a process that changes you and how you see the world.
Seeing.
Up close. Tiny yet exquisite, Draba cuneifolia.
The only part of my degree I don’t use anymore is the title.

But the problem-solving skills, the grit, the ability to learn— those I use everyday. Even out here, while hiking on my days off.
Trying to figure out how to get way over there from way up here.
I understand that what they are saying is that I’m not in a job that requires my degree. It’s true I’m not a research scientist. I'm a Park Ranger and I teach elementary school kids.

I suppose people don’t understand what it’s about. Or they assume getting a PhD is just like going to college for a few more years.

Instead, a PhD is about doing something entirely new. You problem-solve like your life depends on it and tackle projects that take years to complete. Because it’s never been done before. You learn to teach yourself all the skills and any topic you need to know (often from many disciplines). It takes perseverance and resourcefulness. You learn to keep going despite failure after failure. Step by step, you become the world expert on something incredibly small and minuscule, but still you know more about it than anyone else.

Then you assemble the five smartest people you know to ask you any question about ANYTHING. They can literally ask you what a black hole is or who invented the microscope. Even if your topic is ecology. Which I guess is sort of like being a Park Ranger giving an interpretive talk. Except that your thesis committee can fail you.
Not a black hole. Though it looks dark inside.
 I feel like I use my degree when I problem solve and whenever I tackle big problems and when I teach.

And even when I hike. I think the reason I keep coming back to this place is because I want to know it inside out. As if I'm working towards becomming the world-expert. At least trying to get to the bottom of things.
Can't get to the bottom of it here. Must backtrack.
After having walked each drainage, section by section, now I’m following along the rim, bit by bit. Attacking hurdles from all different angles. Stewing over points in my mind for days, checking geologic maps, then leaping up well before my alarm and going out to try the new idea. Keeping notes, methodical, persistent. “Ah ha” moments are few and far between, but when they come there isn’t time to celebrate, just moving on to the next thing.
97% of good hikes involve crossing over barbed wire fences.
Ah ha! I think I've found the swimming pool sized waterhole.
Maybe you are bored with of all these photos that look the same month after month. But I don't tire of them because I can tell that they are slightly different.
Something new here.
This is called "West Boundary Arch." I decided to try to find this arch because I thought the name had a nice ring to it.
Yesterday I was teaching my first and second graders about dodo birds. (They’d been requesting this topic for literally months but it took me this long to think up a suitable lesson). We talked about why they went extinct, how they were well-adapted to their island habitat, why “dodo” is a misnomer and what “misnomer” means, and how they weren’t really stupid. It was just the island they lived on had no predators and they were curious creatures.

I asked them about what “stupid” means and if there are different types of intelligence for different situiations. And they got really into it so I also snuck in some ecological concepts that normally you don’t learn until college but I figured out ways to explain then without technical language. And I could tell from their questions that they were putting really complex ideas together.

Then my students made dodo masks out of cardboard and stapled feathers to them. One kid's mask had blood-red marks on it that he said were scars from the bird getting attacked but then escaping. And then they all ran outside with their masks on and waddled around in a little flock, wildly, joyfully.

 “Not using my degree- ha!,” I think, “What nonsense!”

Leaping along the rim.

16 comments:

  1. People said this to me for years about my writing degree. Why was I cleaning toilets in campgrounds? But then I wrote some books and people don't say it anymore. Weird.

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    1. This made me laugh that they said it to you too. People are so weird.

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  2. I love this post! And I continue to love all of your pictures... as a fellow PhD I agree that most people seem to have a misconception of what goes into this degree and the skills you gain from it. It’s incredibly tough to tackle and persevere through to the end but not for the reasons people think. Thank you for sharing!
    Erin

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    1. So true, Erin. I love that you "get it" too. I suppose we are so stratified as a society and many PhD's are poor at communicating with anyone outside of the ivory tower. Grad school was such a grueling time, sometimes I think that the negative aspects makes it hard to talk about too.

      Yay, I'm glad you still like the photos. I was worried that people would just see more red slickrock and not see the variety and details and unique aspects. Thanks, Erin!

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  3. I find that I've learned so much more after college, whether or not I'm using a marine biology degree or not. It has helped me in all the ways you described, to figure out how to learn for myself and problem solve.

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    1. I agree. School was about learning the tools and skills, and how to use your brain.

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  4. Well said and thanks for sharing your adventures in word and photograph!

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  5. Sounds like jealousy to me! Your work sounds like a perfect combo of little people and outside places. There are so many of us millions who have been out of the wild so long we don't know what we're missing and our perceptions of work, play, results and rewards are just plain stunted, at best. Thank you for another refreshing post!!!

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    1. Maybe that's it. I honestly make a point not to mention my degree normally. It sometimes freaks people out and I don't like that.

      I'm so genuinely happy to be able to focus my life on being outside and doing what I can to help young people learn and grow and be curious. Thanks for commenting, it helps me when I can share these snippets of life with you all.

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  6. What a great topic. When people say, why should I go to college, it's easy to say it changes you, it opens your world . . . if you let it. I think back to algebra and how I used it everyday in my career although it wasn't math related, well except nearly everything really is math related.

    I love your analogy of using your advanced degree problem solving skills as everyday tools. I feel the same. You could have stayed working in a career you didn't love or you could take the chance to find a better fit. The world is a better one because you took that leap.

    Keep learning, growing, changing and sharing.

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    1. Thanks so much my friend! Yes, doing my best to try to keep learning and growing. Some lessons I'm not so good at. But sure do keep at it.

      And certainly the most important thing I've learned is to keep having fun and not take oneself too seriously. Glad you'll be hear soon to give me some lessons in lollygaging.

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  7. What did I say earlier today? "Learn from it."

    The difference that most people don't see is that there IS a difference between education and training. Training teaches you how to do a thing. Education teaches you how to think, create, understand, adapt.

    A couple dead old white guys have a bit more to add about the grit part that's also needed:

    "Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." -- WS Churchill

    "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." -- Calvin Coolidge


    -- Dave (Now catching up on his required reading)

    B.A., English, 1977

    B.S., Physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry, 1992

    P.S.: I took 2 years of Latin (9th & 10th grade), and before I finally forgot the details, I used it almost every day even though I was lousy at Latin itself - most valuable courses I ever took.

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    1. Nice distinction between education and training. Good way to put it.

      Wish I'd learned the importance of grit back when I was in high school. Everyone else seemed to be smarter than me and get things right away. I had to struggle and work twice as hard. Now, they say that type of persistance is more important than smarts. But I would have given anything back then to be able to get things easily.

      Latin! I took two year in high school and then got a C- when I took it in college so that's when I gave up and quit. No grit there. Still like to sing "Meum est propositum in taberna mori, ubi vina proxima morientis ori." Though now I sort of think that's a funny thing to teach high schoolers and I'm not sure it's a valuable thing to know seeing as I can never get anyone to sing it with me.

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  8. Oh lordy not the “degree thingy”! I stopped using mine in 2006, best decision I ever made, I never looked back and I have no regrets. My best creative started the first day after I closed the door on my career. Since then it has been endless learning just for the fun of it. WOOT!

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    1. Yes, JJ, sure is a good feeling to let some things go. Like your attitude. Good, good!

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