You don't really see many Rangers that are people of color that you know make
other people of color visitors feel more welcome or bilingual as well to try to
engage in conversation with them with the language that they feel comfortable
speaking. So I like the what they stood for I like
the idea that they're trying to diversify the field of natural resources
especially in the national park system. I think that simply being the face of the
Park Service while I was on my program I encouraged already a lot of kids to see
themselves as Park Rangers and even just have the idea that that's a possibility for them.
Prior to Mosaics, I thought a career in public service would be something that
was monotonous, repetitive, and not fulfilling, but working at Lava
Beds over the summer really changed that for me because I got to do work that was
extremely impactful, meaningful, and even though I was doing the same program
every week it was something that was exciting to me there was always something to
change something to make better and improve and it's valuable because you
see people actually learning the value and building that connection to things
that they wouldn't normally care about like bats!
My career goals is to continue work
with conservation and especially I'm pretty interested on long-term
monitoring and I think this internship kind of because I'm on archeological side
looking monitoring of species with biologists so it kind of brought
everything together to a full cycle.
The biggest contribution I feel and probably
my team would say the same that I made to Florissant Fossil Beds National
Monument was the geology, paleontology camp that I compiled put together a
curriculum based activities for fourth and fifth graders and the goal is to
have that full implementation going on in summer of 2018
For me the biggest hesitation I had when I was first applying was the big move
because I go to school in Virginia but I'm originally from Guam so that was a
big jump for me going to this national monument, extremely remote area in
the desert that I had never even been to and that's your hesitation I would
encourage you to get out of your comfort zone because it pushed me to do things
that I would normally do. I never cave before I went to Lava Beds but now I'm
in love with caving.
Before applying to this internship reach out to past
interns, ask about our experiences, read the blogs, check out the website, and
write down some goals for yourself of what you want out of this and when you
get to your site share that with your supervisor so you can make sure that you
accomplish those goals.
For me the Mosaics in Science program is amazing
not only for developing my professional skills but because of the part of the
diversity that it has. It's so important because you have that connection with
other peoples that are doing the internship and also on your parks you're
exposing them for maybe something that they are not used to and broadening
their view of what makes America and us like people of color and immigrants and
all of us as one nation so I think this internship is amazing!