Adam Perez
Environmental Studies, 2016
Right after graduation I embarked on a road trip with a friend starting in Montana, going through the Pacific NorthWest, and ending up back at Santa Clara. We visited national forests and parks along the way. The highlight: enjoying the last day of summer in Glacier National Park (snowed the next day for the rest of the season!). After that I enjoyed a year of field work though positions as a Scientific Aide with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and a part of the Conservation Program as a Conservation Technician at Stanford University. I continued to follow my marine passions with a full time position with the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission as a Commercial Groundfish Fisheries Technician. I’ll be sampling commercial ports in Half Moon Bay and San Francisco and doing data management for the entire Northern California area.
The “generalist” approach to the environmental studies degree allowed me to canvas different fields of study and topics of interest while pursuing a topic to focus on. I previously worked on an urban agricultural farm, an experience I think I would not be able to pursue with a less broad field of study. Having familiarity with GIS, Environmental policy writing, lab work, and biological statistical methods (experiences may differ) encouraged me to apply to a variety of positions when job searching as well as facilitate informational discussions with other colleagues within their respective careers. A component of college I miss dearly is the intellectual diversity that I experienced within our department. Two courses that exemplified these qualities were Professor Bacon’s Food Justice course and Agroecology with Professor Melcarek. My words of wisdom regarding job applications: “The worst thing they say is NO!” and...“You’ll never know until you apply”.
