Most college students hope to begin their studies with a major that matches their skills and interests, some change majors partway through, and a few discover that their college simply lacks the program they’re looking for. Olivia Dodge, a current senior at Gordon College from New Hampshire, found herself in this position a few years ago: “I wanted to come into Gordon with an environmental science or conservation biology major, but it didn’t exist yet.”
In an interview, Olivia described to me what this was like: working through challenging organic chemistry classes, changing from Bachelor of Science to Bachelor of Arts in Biology, and adding an environmental studies minor. “The path of me actually getting to environmental science was a little wonky” she says, “I was just making up the path as I could.”
In the Spring of her sophomore year, March 2023, Gordon College officially introduced the environmental science and sustainability major, a few semesters after Olivia had started at Gordon. For many, it would be too late to change course, but Olivia made it work. Now, she’s set to graduate this December with a diploma in environmental science and sustainability, the only current student at Gordon above sophomore status with the major.
Olivia’s love for the natural world began in middle school, when she was able to travel to several national parks and historic sites with her family: “it was on that trip going into my seventh-grade year that I realized that I loved the national parks. And at the time I had told myself, ‘This is what I want to do.’” Her ambitions changed throughout high school, however, and as they “drifted away for a few years,” she felt decided on becoming a history teacher.
Then, she took a formative class on environmental science, and it was like “the career path came right back . . . I knew I wanted to be in environmental science.” And with this rediscovery came new interests: “I fell in love with fishery studies . . . We learned about river populations and freshwater versus saltwater. We kept fish tanks of river fish that we caught with permission and did research with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.” Olivia enthusiastically described to me how the hands-on approach drew her into the work, creating a feeling of practical learning, responsibility, and accomplishment. Even in an introductory course taken in high school, the class felt real and relevant, like an exciting job: “We had a saltwater tank and learned how to maintain that and what you can and can’t do. I learned to never wear nail polish when you’re watching fish, so I had unpainted nails for like two years because of it,” she said. And this too led to other things.
Through the class, as Olivia explained to me, she found an interest in ichthyology (fish studies) and, eventually, mammalogy and ornithology: “Any of the animal or bird sciences, that’s where my brain works . . . looking at different features on a skull or on a fish’s body or a bird’s wing, that’s what gets me. And I’m also an artist so I see it from the artist’s perspective.” Then, she described how this passion came about, crediting it in part to the teacher she had during high school for environmental science, a skilled educator and positive role model: “I was like ‘Wow, there is a woman like me in science. This is the coolest thing.’ … [she was] one of the most influential people that I have ever worked with.”
Not long after, Olivia was asked by the teacher to be an assistant for the course. She accepted, sensing that she’d found an area of study that was not only purposeful, but also a joy: “It just felt right for the first time . . . It’s not just a concern for the environment, which is obviously a very important component, but also just the fact that it brings you joy to study.”
Influenced by both positive educators and the joy of experiencing the national parks as a child, Olivia describes a pertinent aspect of environmental science in her view: sharing that love with kids and encouraging them to think deeply about the world around them: “I feel like we just need to pour into kids. Focusing on what you can’t do is the most pessimistic way to look at the world . . . [instead we] pour into kids this positive knowledge of ‘here’s what you can do.’” She added that one of the best ways to reach parents is through the cares and goals of their children, leading simple attitudes to spark wider change: “there are so many great ways to get kids involved . . . and then when kids’ excitement exists, the parents take notice and hopefully there’s a change.”
In this way, Olivia has seen her environmental science major at Gordon as a means to sharing that wonder she felt in middle school: visiting national parks and finding the natural world to be striking, beautiful, and worth protecting: “as a freshman at Gordon and then throughout the years building this program I’ve been trying to angle my studies towards the National Park Service. I would love to be a Ranger.”
In the end, the wonky academic journey brought clarity to what she found both uninteresting and unexpectedly compelling, an especially helpful distinction to have towards the end of one’s college education: “Environmental ethics was another class that was required that I took as my philosophy core. I got to focus on indigenous peoples and their struggles with environmental development. I love looking at the human rights side of it and I didn’t even realize that.” Through studies at Gordon and her own research, Olivia has come to a better understanding of places like the national parks, slowly seeing this love for the natural world change from mere admiration and amazement to care, concern, and initiative. The Grand Canyon, a park she’s been to, comes to mind: “there’s so much going on that if you’re a tourist you’re not going to see. There are people hurting, and waters that look clean but are radioactive.”
Olivia found her academic program a few years into college, but her passion for environmental science would be there with or without the major. And throughout the course of our conversation, I began to get the impression that this whole academic journey, in the best of cases, is something like an excuse to study what we love.
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