Catharine Rees' Manifesto

As I reflect back, not only on my service learning project, but on my last two years at HSU, I have grown immensely as a person in more ways than I could have imagined. Looking back on the first day of ENST 120, I had no idea what a journey these two years would be. Starting with 295, I began seeing the world through different lenses and different perspectives. I have experienced feelings of hope, hopelessness, joy, doubt, being overwhelmed, insignificance, powerful and many others. However, I also came to terms that all of those feelings are okay. Being an ENST major is not always easy. It is hard to grasp the magnitude of our world’s problems, but we also gained tools to help us navigate through it. I think the service learning project was a great avenue to do that. It allowed us to channel our passions in an effective manner, outside of the classroom.

For me, the service learning project gave me a great insight into the world of conservation and ecology. Working with Patrick’s Point State Park, I was able to apply knowledge gained over the course of the many years I have been in school. I used knowledge from botany, conservation ecology, principles of wildlife, environmental communication...and many many more. However, outside of the “textbook” classes and X’s and O’s of my project, I was able to put into perspective the ENST major.

Large picture, it is easy to get wrapped up in the feeling of being overwhelmed or feeling insignificant. For me, a big battle was finding a state of mind where I don’t feel like what I am doing is insignificant, but also not trying to take on the world overnight and completely overwhelm myself. Kim Tays, the head of The No Ivy League, really helped put that in perspective for me. As I mentioned in my presentation, life really is like pulling ivy sometimes. Sometimes, in life, we put our head down and dive into a project and just when we feel like we have made a ton of progress, we stop and look around, only to realize what we have been doing has only made a small dent.

I think the biggest thing to realize is that, no matter how big the project and no matter how much progress has been made, there will always be so much more. Accepting this was one of the hardest parts of going through my service learning project. ENST has given me the tools to grapple with these feelings and turn them into positive, effective action. Conservation, especially in the state of our world now, isn’t easy. However, I feel like there has been big strides in creating awareness of our problems and that’s a start. Figuring out how to use my course work and the ENST lens to continue to promote change in the way we use our natural resources will be a challenge that will encompass social change, political change and changes in conservation management. It will take multiple disciplines and multiple avenues to do effectively, but I am confident in my ability to apply different lenses to create change.