Making the Change: challenges and opportunities of switching career
By Nick Littlewood, MSc Wildlife and Conservation Management Programme Lead
Career flexibility has become ever more common. Gone are the days of staying in one role for life and workers increasingly take steps to enter new sectors that match their interests and values. This can, nonetheless, be challenging and scary though studying to gain the skills and qualifications that enable a switch has never been easier. Whilst at one time, a higher education course meant studying full-time at a college or university campus, a rise in flexible study options opens opportunities to a far wider range of people.
SRUC (Scotland’s Rural College) runs a part-time, distance-learning postgraduate programme in Wildlife and Conservation Management. This leads to qualifications of Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma or MSc. A previous honours degree provides evidence of study skills though this previous study may have been some years before and can encompass a bewildering array of subjects, including languages, art, music, marketing, theology and a range of science disciplines. Similarly, applicants have work experience ranging from GP to police officer, schoolteacher to translator and video game designer to firefighter. This rich blend ensures that discussions are lively and include viewpoints and perceptions that simply would not arise in a room full of lifelong wildlife conservation professionals.
Studying remotely does not have to mean studying in isolation. Distance-learning courses may include a range of opportunities to come together for immersive experiences. In our case, this involves site visits and associated discussions on study weekends that underpin and enrich the learning experience and also help to build supportive communities of learners. On a recent Welcome Weekend for our new student intake, activities ranged from seal watching with a seal researcher, through discussing the highs and lows of nature reserve management with NatureScot staff to designing a “coat of arms” for the course.
No higher education course will teach a student everything about a topic. Nature conservation is broad and when one throws in the need to understand how people engage with the environment, the scope is enormous. Instead, the focus is on developing skills in accessing, appraising, summarising and communicating evidence. We do this via a range of what are termed authentic assessments – i.e. rather than churning out academic essays, students demonstrate their learning through popular science articles, video presentations, visual concept maps, social media plans, poster presentations, impact assessment reports and more. This brings familiarity with approaches used in the sector and, crucially, develops skills in communicating key messages via a range of media and to a range of audiences.
The SRUC course runs over three years for the full MSc, with the final year being a research dissertation. The geographic spread of students ensures a rich spread of topics while the broad remit of the course overall means that students may draw on both natural and social science approaches, with taught modules helping to develop both quantitative and quantitative skills. Projects have included assessment of impact of dog flea treatments on aquatic invertebrates, using remote sensed data to predict habitat condition, opportunities and challenges of urban rewilding through to testing effectiveness of alternatives to lead ammunition in deer management.
With part-time courses, students can be pursuing that change to related employment at any stage and do not need to wait until the end to seek to do so. Staff engage with students to signpost additional training, experiences and opportunities for developing skills that might make a difference in the job market. Students often have a range of diverse transferrable skills too, that give extra advantage when seeking employment. Some students enter roles that, in part, relate to previous careers – such as a teacher taking on a role providing training within a wildlife agency, or a communications professional leading on comms for a wildlife project. Others enter roles with fewer direct links to previous careers and recent graduates are working as rangers, ecological consultants, nature reserve management staff, operations posts for government agencies and project officers for wildlife conservation initiatives. For some, the MSc is a start of study in the sector and provides motivation for continuing study to PhD level.
Our experience of teaching on this course has shown that age or previous study area is no bar to succeeding in making the switch to working in conservation. Balancing study with ongoing employment, family, caring responsibilities and all the competing demands of life can be challenging and does require real commitment. However, succeeding in this demonstrates skills, aptitudes, initiative and focus that are so important to employers.
If you are considering returning to education, take time to research your options – what is the balance of in-person, live online and directed study and which works best for your circumstances? Does the course have particular specialisms and what have graduates gone on to do? If it helps with your decision, ask to talk directly with the course leader or attend open day events. Find out how flexible the course is if you are unsure at what pace you might wish to study. Ultimately, the better the course fits your interests and circumstances, the better your chance is of success. Go for it and be inspired by others that have made the move before.
Finally, as lecturers, we are constantly inspired by the student journeys that we witness. The best advert for any course is its graduates. Hence, we were delighted that recent graduates from our programme so strongly supported our successful nomination for the CIEEM award of Higher Education Programme of the Year through testimonials describing how the course relates so closely to their roles in the wildlife sector. Read more on page 15 of the awards booklet.
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