Environment Insights
Counselor's Perspective
A Day in the Life
Opportunities
Resources
Who has come to Duke
Counselor’s Perspective
Exploring career options is essential to help you define where you want to go and who you want to become as an environmental professional. Try to schedule regular time in your schedule for information gathering, as this will help you begin to focus your career goals and develop a solid plan for achieving them. Whether it's researching environmental organizations on the Web, networking with seasoned professionals, or just brainstorming ideal jobs with classmates and faculty, exploration is the essential first step in achieving your career goals.
Along with information gathering about environmental jobs and employers, effective career exploration also involves self-assessment. Knowing your interests, skills and values, and choosing work which matches well with them, will increase your career satisfaction and overall success. You can probably verbalize your interests and skills relatively easily, but do you know what kind of organizational culture would suit you best? Identifying your values regarding such things as compensation, professional advancement, job security, autonomy in the workplace, power, creativity and global responsibility, just to name a few, can help you target organizations with value systems that mirror your own.
Communication Strategies
Can you see the forest for the trees? Can you synthesize and apply everything you've learned along the path of your career development? Pulling together all of the knowledge and skills you've gathered through career exploration and preparation activities, finding the common threads among the many details, and communicating them concisely and effectively is critical. You need to be able to tell prospective employers who you are as an environmental professional, where you're going in your career, and what skills you have to help you get there. As you move forward in your career, plan regularly to review where you've been, evaluate where you are, and integrate the results of this assessment into a new set of goals for yourself and your professional development.
No matter where you are in your career, connecting with people in and outside your field will be essential to your professional development and success. Take the time to talk with faculty about your career goals and get their advice on classes to increase your knowledge about topics you're most interested in. Get to know your career counselor so that they can help you locate internship opportunities and connect with prospective employers when you're seeking a job after graduation. Network with alumni (in DukeConnect) and other professionals to get their perspectives on the knowledge, skills and abilities employers are looking for in new hires, as well as job market trends and name of other colleagues you can contact for career advice.
A Day in the Life of an Intern at Environment North Carolina
8:40 Arrive, Check email
9:00 Go to the Legislative Building Library to search for articles quoting an Environment North Carolina
Staffer
12:00 Attend a house Committee Meeting to monitor current environmental legislation
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Prepare fact sheets on environmental bills for the House and Senate
4:00 Distribute Fact Sheets to the House and Senate members offices
5:00 Pack up, go home
Opportunities
Opportunities in the environmental field exist in non-profit, government, and private agencies. Based on your skills, interests, personality and values you may choose to focus your search on a particular area within the environmental field whether it’s from a science or policy perspective. Internship opportunities are a critical way of getting experience in the environmental field. The Nicholas School’s Office of Career Services sponsors the Stanback Internship Program. Interviews for the Stanback Internships are held annually in February.
Resources
Below is a list of some of the most useful resources.
- Environmental Careers Organization - helping people help the environment
- The Orion Grassroots Network
- Environmental Resources
- ECO Jobs
- Environmental CAREER.com
The resource room (106 Page) at the Duke Career Center also has excellent books regarding environmental careers including:
- Careers in the Environment
- The Complete Guide to Environmental Careers in the 21st Century
- Resumes for Environmental Careers
- The ECO Guide to Careers That Make a Difference
Use the resources provided as well as contact faculty, staff, and alumni to learn more about environmental careers and what to expect.
Who has come to Duke?
This is a sampling of employers that have recruited students interested in the environment.
ICF ConsultingEPA
Clean Water Management Trust Fund
Sierra Club
Environment North Carolina
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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