> Hi RK and fellow ecologgers, I also want to share my experience sorry if its a long story -I'm not a smug success I just found a way to get out of the rut.
When I read your email RK I felt like I was reading my own diary from about one year ago. I know exactly what you are going through and can only say that you are not alone and it will end. I graduated from a MSc in 2005 in full of expectations for a glorious conservation career. i chose to study in south africa so that i could be in Africa and after i graduated i spent 14months sitting in my bedroom in my patents house in london writing application letters and crying in between (after about 8 months of this). I was lucky I guess in the end because I got a three month contract as a biodiversity consultant which then led to me being offered a position in an NGO as a secretary to the CEO. Even though typing letters and filing was way under my pay grade and my level of experience I took the opportunity gladly and I learned so much about international conservation at the high end of the game. After one year I persuaded them to send me to Kenya to work on the ground. After 5months the funding ran out and they sent me to Mozambique for 3months, after which the money also ran out. At the time I was very frustrated and angry that they wouldn't/couldn't offer me a full time job which was my only objective- no matter what the pay. Anyway Mozambique ended in 2007. That's almost 5 years ago and since then I returned to home and spent many months again in my bedroom job and phd hunting and eventually took a job working as a technician collecting insects -again nothing to do with my experience or ambition and for minimum wage. After a year that too ended and that was my last paid ecology job to date (2009)! I couldn't find a job doing what I wanted, what I was qualified for, I had tired out all my network asking them endlessly for help, advice and work. I spent a few months volunteering in botswana hoping it would lead to work but they too sent me home, i tried again in zambia to start up a self funded project looking at small carnivores but again no one wanted to help and the project fell flat and i found myself in my bedroom. i spent a terrible slow 13moths falling into depression and feeling totally worthless. I reached rock bottom and lost hope, i resented everyone who had 'made it'; everyone seemed to have found a way except me. i felt the only thing that would help my mood would be a job or a phd but that was beyond my control so I was powerless to change my situation and that made me more depressed. Eventually I couldn't even talk to my friends any more because they would ask me how I was and I couldn't lie and say ok, and they would ask me what I'm up to and I couldn't face telling 'still nothing'. I stopped going out to avoid meeting people would ask me what I do. Because I felt like such a failure and a liar if I said I'm a conservationist. I started lying to people saying i was working in a bar just so that i didnt have to tell them i had failed at my dreams, i couldnt even read nat geo anymore because I would get too jealous. Anyway eventually I could barely get up in the morning and my friends started to worry. My best friend from my masters days suggested I come to visit him in South Africa to get out of the rut and give myself a break. I didnt think it would help but at least I'd be on African soil again but i was angry that he got to live there permanently. It was the best decision I made- within two weeks of not thinking about what to do I was back to my bouncy self. I still was in the same situation but I was a fresh person. I went to a conference (self paid) and met a consultant who offered mea one month contract in South Africa. I took it. During that month I applied for a phd in Zambia and got it- they said I got the position because I had such diverse experience - to me I had a cv full of worthless temporary odd jobs- to them I was worldly, adaptive and had been to the Zambia. So now I'm doing my phd and who knows what will happen afterward. I will probably have another sad bout of frustration and unemployment, but I met my husband (to be) along my travels and I would not have met him if I hadn't got the phd or gone to the conference or gone back to Africa or been unemployed for so long that i got so low and decided to south africa to visit my friend etc etc. it's not that I got the phd that made everything better, it's that i got so low that I popped the hope and glory bubble and no longer had self expectation to be great. I realised i was trying to base my identity on my job an so thereby feeling a failure without one. Without this self pity and blaming others it became resignation and it freed me from the frustration and allowed me to try again without expectations. Now I'm doing the phd but its my work not my life. So my advice even though you ask not to recieve it- is accept that ours is a ridiculous and unfair path where even if you get a job it won't be what you wanted and it won't make you rich but maybe it will become a link in the chain that eventually makes you the right candidate at the right time. If you can't try anymore, allow yourself to give up for a while, don't think that the world is only unfair to you- we are all stuck and frustrated for long periods and you can still care about conservation and do it in you spare time. At least we aren't failing actors! Malcolm is right- dont waste years doing nothing, do something- anything- in your own time, study something, make something, paint something! Go travelling, learn a new skill. Get out of the rut because no one else can help you do that. And don't blame the system cos then you are not in control and can't make a change. (And cos there is no system!). And I think the main thing is DO ask people who have 'made it' their thoughts and advice- then you will realise that they have been there too, they just came out the other side already- so ask them how they survived the darkness.. Remember why you wanted to work in conservation then be ok with the fact that you haven't succeeded, and then try again. And remember for everyone that seems to have made it there are many many of us who haven't- yet... Hope this helps. Tania Tania Bird MSc www.taniabird.com ~There is a sufficiency for man's need but not for man's greed ~ Ghandi On Nov 5, 2012, at 17:26, R K <@YAHOO.COM> wrote: > I would like to know if there's anyone else out there who has fought > their way through grad school, and finished with a real sense of > accomplishment, only to discover the utter impossibility of finding a job in > conservation science, the sham of building a career in this field. I would > like to know if there are any others who have gone a year or more since > graduation with no work, no prospects, and no hope left. > > I'm not looking for career advice, especially not from all those who feel > so very proud and superior to have a job where I do not. I've had enough > contempt, scorn, and smug cold amusement to last me a lifetime. If you're > employed, count yourself fortunate and move along. > > I'm not here to start a discussion; I'd just like to know if there's > anyone else living in the same place right now. If you've gone through the > endless rounds of application and rejection, if you poured yourself into > hopes that have gone to barren dust, I'd like to hear from you. Send me a > reply off-list.
