18 years old...college...should I go?

Yeah, I basically agree^^

I volunteer at a park nearby, and the park rangers (I think there are only 2 or 3 FT), seem to spend a lot of time in the office. I don't think it's any walk in the park, nor a position where you commune with nature. At this park they're the management, and the PT rangers (college kids, usually) and volunteers do a lot of the outdoorsy stuff.

Of course, that's only at that specific location.

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I was born [upon the prairie] where there were no enclosures, and where everything drew free breath. I want to die there and not within walls.
--Ten Bears

All through High School, I knew that one day I wanted my little place out in the country, My parents pushed me to go to college, even though I wasn't very keen on the idea at first. College is so much more enjoyable than high school. It's a lot of hard work though, but it instills in a person the self discipline that is so necessary for us to be successful. Self discipline will be a helpful attribute for you when you do undertake getting a place of your own, and begin homesteading. Also, you will gain a knowledge of many things, and having a wide basis of understanding about people and relationships between things is key. I say, if you have the opportunity to go to school, seize the opportunity! Getting a degree will afford you more options down the road, as far as where you work and what kinds of jobs might be offered to you. Make the most of your chance. Good luck!

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"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow the fields of those who don't."-Thomas Jefferson

You are going to need a job for a while to be able to save to buy some independence. It's also good to maintain an income-stream even after you move full-time onto your homestead, and keep some contact with the job market just in case things change and you need to get back to full-time work. It's a lot easier to get a job after ten or twenty years of part-time work with references than after ten or twenty years of no formal employment with no references. In addition, in the USA, you nearly have to have medical insurance, and nearly only employers can afford to finance it for you.

Now, I'm not saying a degree is needed to DO many jobs,
but these days a degree is needed to GET many jobs.
The job market is so competitive that they may get many hundreds of applications for even just one position. They use having a degree as an easy one-choice, yes/no way of throwing away or discouraging many hundreds of those applications they'd otherwise have to wade through for that one position. So, you nearly can't get anything more than basic-pay waiting, burger-flipping or pearl-diving (washing-up), unless you have a degree to open the gate.

So... how do you get a degree, hopefully relevant, as cheaply as possible?
Well, first of all, relevant don't mean what it did once.
Once, people started a lifetime career, and stayed with it, maybe even with the same employer, all their working life.
Now, it's usual for people to have to change careers several times during their working lives. Employers come and go, even industries come and go, get completely reshaped by technology advances, or get exported offshore by bean-counters who can't see past next quarter's bottom line, and don't understand that their employees are their customers but they need money to buy.

So... in your case, a good degree should cover the basics, rather than get tied down in details. It would also be good if it covered something that's essential rather than a luxury, and that's harder to out-source. That nearly has to be a basic industry that requires hands-on work or physical presence. An associate degree in what used to be trades (like building, mechanic, plumber, electrician), degree in nursing, in your case a degree that would qualify you as a forester, as an extension worker in agriculture, maybe horticulture that could qualify you to work in a plant nursery, an orchard, or municipal parks and gardens. Maybe basic science and biology leading to work in general or pathology labs.
In your case I highly recommend forestry or horticulture, with agriculture as a secondary.

Choose right and you may already have an associate degree, then be able to extend it to a full degree with just another year or two work. You could do that while getting paid for weekends working in a plant nursery or something like that, and then come to the job market with a couple of years of experience already under your belt.

Many universities will accept a lot of credits (at a high-enough level) from community colleges, and the community college courses cost a LOT less to get than higher colleges. That translates into much lower student debt - maybe even none, if you can keep up with it as you go along. It can maybe also mean no college living expenses, if you can manage to stay at home, or manage a part-time job to cover accommodation (community colleges often try to work better with working people, so have after-hours courses as well).

There are also on-line options for many courses at levels that are acceptable for or offered by many accredited colleges.
At the very least you may consider these as ways of getting any bullspat courses - required humanities and so forth that have nothing to do with your real aims, and are only required so they can bulk-up the size of their humanities faculties, and so they can keep you for four full fee-paying years when you really only NEED three. There's no need to pay full freight and go into hock for those if there are cheaper ways to fulfil their artificial requirements.

It may be too late for you to avoid starting on Monday, but even so you can think about the options. Maybe opt to drop back to other options for a while after your first semester. If you tell them you can handle the work (AND PROVE IT), but are having too much trouble balancing costs with study and part-time work, they should let you withdraw without penalty and with whatever credit you've earned. If you think that's an option, you should probably opt for meaningful real-world courses the first semester - ones that a community college would also accept.

Whatever you decide to do, you MUST commit yourself 100% to passing what you start.
Anything less is just throwing money away. Higher-level college courses are A LOT different and a lot harder than high school. It's sink or swim, more-or-less on your own. You'll have to do it ALL yourself, unless you can form some self-help study groups with other students. You won't have teachers riding herd on you, keeping you up to the mark. It's up to YOU to get ahead of the curve. Read ahead of the lectures (makes understanding a break-neck pace lecture from someone with a heavy accent a lot easier, and getting ahead is much easier than trying to keep up or catch up), study, do the assignments as they're handed out rather than leaving them to the last minute. You'll have a lot of people and a lot of activities tempting you to give less than 100%, or to let things slip while you enjoy this or that, but it's up to YOU to resist. Playing catch-up later may not work, and in the end it's a lot harder than keeping ahead.
Also, how well you do can count for a lot later-on in the job market. Having the degree may get your application considered, but doing well rather than just a bare pass may be what gets you to an interview.

I'm not saying you can't enjoy yourself, but you need to work full-time and play in your spare time. You'll see a lot of people trying to play full-time and work in their spare time, and that just don't work out so well.

College will give you experience in living (somewhat) on your own, unless you plan to stay w/your parents while taking classes. Diving into the cold, cruel world right after high school is a lot, imo. You still need MONEY, and the sorts of jobs for HS grads don't give you enough to start or support the lifestyle you are talking about. I don't think there are a lot fo jobs for those w/degrees in wildlife con. Getting the basic college courses covered is good acvice, imo. Have you looked into something like vet tech, and then tailor towards your interests?

Hi Wolf, welcome to the forum

My husband is in wildlife conservation though he has a B.S. in biology, not in Wildlife Conservation and I have a BS in Biology and have just spent the past six months in the conservation job market so I think I can give you some good advice in this area.

First, you do not need to build up massive amounts of debt to go to college. If you go to a state college (you will derive no benefit from going to a private college in the conservation field) you will find tuition is much less. If there is a state college close to you, you might be able to live with your parents or relatives for all or part of your degree. If you can do both of these things you will easily be able to work enough to pay your way through college.

If you can't live with your parents, you may have to take some loans but don't discount work study as well. Through this program, qualifying students can get paid to do work in their respective departments. Kind of like an internship but with better pay.

This brings me to the main point- at this point, an education without experience is nearly useless. You would not believe how many biology and similar degrees are being handed out every spring- many more than the current level of job creation in biology related fields. So, if you want to get a job after college, you MUST get all the experience in your desired field you possibly can. Go to The Nature Conservancy website, nature.org TODAY and look up about volunteer opportunities in your state. Look at the state DNR web page and see if there are volunteer opportunities there. Then, while in college, seek out professors who are doing research in pertinent areas and work with them. In the summer, apply for conservation tech positions (which actually pay pretty well!) and gain experience that way. Even if it takes you five or six years to finish, if you get a BS AND experience without debt, it will be worth it.

Now, in terms of job availability. It is much easier to find a job in restoration, particularly prairie or savanna restoration than wildlife monitoring. If working with macrofauna- wolves, bears, deer etc... is your goal then you will really want to get experience in this field before you graduate because jobs in this area are incredibly hard to come by. They are there, so if this is what you want to do, don't give up but make sure you are willing to work for it and that you have a back-up plan. Having little to no college debt will help when you are bouncing from seasonal job to seasonal job before you've earned enough experience to get that rare permanent job. It might take you five or ten years of working seasonal temp jobs until you get a permanent position. The nature of funding for wildlife biology is so fickle that your job security will be fairly low. These things are just part of the price of working in the field though.

If you want to get an idea of the jobs that are out there in the conservation field, go to usajobs.gov and search "biology" or "conservation." The listings will give you an idea of what kind of experience and education is required at each level. There are conservation jobs you could do even now, without any experience, but they pay low and they are not permanent. If you want a permanent job in conservation, you need a BS or even masters degree. It's a long road, true but if it's your dream it is definitely feasible. If you ever want to talk about it, feel free to PM me.

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Jessica

Homestead / Nature Journal ~ A path is made by walking it ~

Some excellent advice here, especially Jessica's above.

I would add that if you're going to go into a highly competitive field, you must aim for excellence, every day, and go above and beyond to stand out from the competition. Join organizations, volunteer, make connections, network, and try to get letters of reference from key people you encounter. Yes, it's a lot of work, but it can pay off -- I spent most of my career in a professional job for which I had no formal qualifications (but I was very good at schmoozing, heh heh).

If you're thinking about a career in conservation because you're a retiring sort who enjoys the solitude of working alone in Nature (and there's nothing wrong with that!) you may have to adopt a different mindset, at least temporarily, until you can find the sort of job that lets you enjoy some peace and quiet!

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

If you want to physically work hard for someone else the rest of your life, then don't go to college.

If you want to physically work hard for yourself, then go to college.

I would not plan to incur "tons of debt" in order to get a job that pays as does the typical entry level position for a person with a wildlife conservation degree.

This may sound harsh, but most of the jobs you will likely be gunning for will barely allow you to live reasonably and put maybe 5 - 10% away for retirement. That is, unless those jobs are paying much better than they were when I was in your shoes and considering the same path.

I think we all agree there is no cookie cutter answer. But there are financial realities that you should try not to violate. High debt along with a low paying job is one of them IMO.

Education is usually worth the price....but not always. Apply some common sense and you will be ok.


Tim

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Taxes, in excess of what are needed to fulfill the constitutionally authorized activity of government, are theft

Trade school is a great option. My son got an HVAC certificate and is almost to his Associate's Degree. He had 5 interviews and 5 job offers in a week. If you really want to get a Bachelor's Degree and can't decide what field you want to go into, you might get an AA in General Studies just to get the basics out of the way. Good luck!

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Terri

Here's something nobody's mentioned yet:

If you change your major and shoot for Biology and also take the necessary courses to teach elementary through highschool you can qualify for a grant that will pay your tuition if you commit to teaching for a minimum of four years in certain areas (mostly rural areas, for example practically every school in Alaska qualifies, but urban areas that are understaffed qualify too.)

They are desperate to train more teachers in the math, sciences, foreign language, and special education. Teaching doesn't pay great, but you get your summers off and you get school paid for, and can do volunteer work in the summers to prepare you for a career in the field you really want to be in. Have an education background will probably also make you a more desirable candidate for many careers in the wildlife conservation field, or you could go on to do graduate work and teach college level courses which often include a lot of opportunities for tons of potentially paid research positions.

PLUS, you will pretty much ALWAYS have a job if you need it and are willing to move to wherever the latest teacher shortage is.

(Can you tell I've considered this path for myself? I have. It's the only way I would ever go to college.)

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Rachel Haiku Heritage City Farm

Then give it a shot, see if you like it. College isn't for everyone. As others have said, if you're not committed to it, it's a waste of time and money. I've got one son who wasted three semesters at college before he figured out it wasn't for him. He's a computer geek and got a well-paying job in south Florida. I've got a 19 year-old daughter who currently works several jobs: vet's asst; ranch hand, horse trainer and is working toward getting certified as a therapeutic riding instructor. Another daughter is in school full-time in a nursing program.

Me? I've got a graduate degree, and for me college was worth it.

As has been stated by many, getting the degree may not get you a job, but it will open doors that will remain closed if you don't have it.

Look at volunteering too, my son just got a PAYING job as an archivist for the university he attends because he volunteered last year for no pay. It is in his field of study (Military History) and he is working. After two years of trying to get a job on campus and off campus, competing with thousands of other students for the few jobs that were out there, he decided to volunteer. It paid off in spades this year. So volunteering, while you aren't seeing any money up front, will give you experience which is vital and will also get your foot in the door of your chosen profession.

I've never regretted going to school - it is a way to keep up to date on skills, meet new people who can help you get a job later in life (network!), and builds your inner self discipline. Matter of fact, I start back to school in September for a 10 week class. I have a job, but I like to learn too and stay up to date. Learning is a life long process and you can use many skills on the farm as well.

Welcome to the forum!!

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Be yourself - no one can tell you that you're doing it wrong!

http://www.polyfacefarms.com/apprenticeship/

apprenticeship on a homestead for a year first to get an idea of what the demands of your dream is really like. Then go to college after the apprenticeship so you will have a better idea of what kind of an education you will really need. Joel Salatin's farm probably has more hands on experience in one year than what any college could give in four.

Learn a trade.... Become an apprentice. Its important you learn while you are young and without burdensome debt. Do not go to college if you need to take out a loan.

There are 3 ways:

1. Make so much money you can pay everything to be done and built for you.
2. Learn multiple trades(plumbing, electrical, HVAC (don't choose the easy ones)etc) while you are 18-22. Then start a company or work for someone all the while saving money and incrementally building your homestead yourself.
3. Do the same as number 2 but then go back to school (with the knowledge of those important trades and some savings in the back) and make enough money to pay someone to help you build your homestead knowing what/how it should be done.


There are enough people in society that don't know how to do a thing other than wave a degree and hope for a government or union protected job to give them a desk to sit safely behind.

I would venture to guess that most people with degrees do not work for the government OR belong to a union...

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

When I started at the University of Minnesota - back in 1971 - I majored in Fisheries and Wildlife. After my first quarter at the U, I met with my undergrad advisor. He asked why I selected Fisheries and Wildlife as a major. Like you, I told him I wanted to work outdoors. Then he gave me a dose of reality. He informed me to find a job in F&W, I would probably have to get a Ph.D. degree and my first job would be cleaning outhouses at state or national parks.

Needless to say, I was demoralized. I looked at other majors and read about Soil Science. At the time, the USDA and environment agencies were hiring hundreds of BS level soil scientists to map soils, work as district conservationists, etc. All this work was outside, too and I didn't need a Ph.D degree. It was the best move I ever made! Problem is, I'm still working with outhouses - so to speak!

During my college career, I was lucky enough to live at home and work a part time job. I never, ever had a college loan and was able to pay 100% of my tuition from my part time jobs.

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This is the government the Founding Fathers warned us about.....

College doesn't have to be terribly expensive. If you attend a community college, there isn't a lot of debt because the schools are more affordable. You might find that you don't need to go into a lot of debt.

The other thing is that you could possibly study something that ties in with your desire to homestead. While high school may have been boring, attending classes on agriculture might not be so dull for you. Think about topics like animal husbandry,herd/flock management, organic crop management, etc. There are majors relating to water and soil management.

While I didn't attend college for anything farm-related, I find myself fascinated by those topics. If I ever go back to school for another degree, it will be in an agricultural field.

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~TheMartianChick~

My latest novels:
Bystander: A Tale of the End of the World as SHE Knew It!

Christmas in Bystander & Other Village Tales

Coming Soon: A Slice of Heaven

I was reading the other day about how the median starting wage for college grads is dropping because everyone seems to be going to school for everything.

If I was starting over, or starting out at age 18 and wanting to decide what to do in order to get that homestead, I'd sit down, assess my skills and what I like to do, and from there choose a job that is in high demand in pretty much any rural area. For me, that job would be nursing. 2-year associate's degree, and an RN can pretty much find a job anywhere. Not only that, but there's a couple very special things - you can be a travelling/temporary nurse and make an absolute KILLING with housing paid for. Do that for a year or so, and you've got a pretty nice sized nest egg to get your homestead since you make so dang much money and your expenses are minimal. After that, you can continue to work part-time or take temp travel jobs - you'll make enough money to support yourself and have good benefits, but you'll have the time and energy to devote yourself to focusing on the homestead. I swear if anything happened to my husband I'd take the insurance money and go to nursing school - I'd be on the homestead within two years.

My mentality, personally, is that I don't want a job that is compatible with homesteading type stuff - I want to focus as much time and energy on the homestead itself as possible and have a career/skill to fall back on or a job that pays well enough but requires little time. I can teach myself the skills I need to learn, don't need to go to school for that stuff. In my perfect world, we'd make enough money on-farm to pay for our life there without a 9-5. But I'm also an entrepreneur type and would never just be happy working a job the rest of my life.

The danger of going to school for extended education (bachelor's or especially a Master's) is that you run up high student loans and often times it's hard to get yourself out of the corporate world if that's your first job. It's kind of a trap. That's why I'd go to vocational/tech school or do some sort of medical field where you can get the skills quick and immediately go work in your rural area. Kids with business degrees these days are a dime a dozen, but an auto mechanic, plumber, bricklayer, carpenter, nurse, radiologist, etc. will pretty much always be in immediate demand, especially the medical fields.

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Uncle Dutch Farms
Blogging from working city mom to homesteading housewife.
Rural Living Today
Encouragement for the Urban-to-Rural Transition
My review of the Piteba oil expeller

Community college student here with 31 weeks left(YAY!). That being said, my husband and I are able to both attend fulltime college programs( ADN and surgical tech) with hubby only working a few shifts a week. We are usually in a constant state of "okay" or "broke". You have to believe in the end goal!

My entire reason for going to college? To be able to afford my homestead and for my homestead to be my "hobby" or pleasure and not out of pure need. I know an older gentleman that homesteads for the simple fact he has no retirement and no job. He bandages his own wounds(major or minor) and dumpster dives for rabbit and chicken (and sometimes his OWN) food. I admire him greatly for building a liveable home with his own two hands and recovered materials, but it's not what I would want.

Finances. My husband and I are broke, but broke is better than in debt! Financial aid, it works. Many community colleges are very financial aid friendly. Fill out your FAFSA, buy you textbooks offline or used from other students(not from the bookstore), carpool, buy smart and dedicate yourself to your end goal. Don't go out and party(alcohol and eating out is expensive!). When my hubby and I get restless, we go out on "dates" which include going out and "shopping"(<-not BUYING, just walking around looking until the restlessness subsides LMAO).

It can be done. I am a 22 year old married to a 22 year old, we both attend a fulltime college program and have not accumulated any debt. We are broke, but not in debt.

It takes a good chunk of money to start a homestead, with the biggest expense being land and housing. Inherited, saved, or dribbled in over time, it has to come from somewhere. Oyu can do the work yourself and save, but it is still expensive. The better your education (and hopefully your job) the better chance you have of scraping it all together (and getting a loan if need be)when it comes time to buy your place. Once you are tied to your land, you limit your ability to move to follow work and may have to compromise on a job to stay there. A good education will only create more options. The folks that have done well without a higher education are either very smart or very lucky, or both (and got started 20+ years ago when it didn't matter as much). There is no reason to start your adult life at the back of the pack.

I too hated school, mostly I was bored by a bunch of material I didn't think was very important. A mediocre social life didn't help either. All I ever thought about was heading into the woods and building a cabin and living off the land (all my old notebooks are covered with sketches of cabins and lists of things I might need, but always knew that I was too poor to pull it off. Went to college in the mountains pretty much because it was expected of me (a new, beautiful setting was a huge plus, though), shifted my interests to farming vs hunting/gathering, worked through school so I could finish with no debt, still bored a lot because I needed to be outside actually doing something REAL. Graduated, still knowing I was too poor to pull off a farm, started a job in the banking. Got married, bought a house in a starter neighborhood, saved every penny we could, did some small scale gardening/livestock to keep the dream alive. Bought (mortgaged) a house with 3 acres that we thought we could turn into a homestead, but had to rent it out because I didn't have a job in the area. Bought the 3 acres next to it. Found a job 35 minutes away from the farm and moved. Been homesteading and working full time for 3 years now. I am much closer to my dream than when I started but is still not quite what I am looking for (despite my avatar), I need more time on the farm, which will probably mean quitting my job at some point and working part time. Thanks to my job (which I never would have gotten without my college education) I am in a position to actually consider being able to do this in my early thirties. I can't imagine where I'd be if I had not gone to college. The problem I run into now is that some of the other careers I would like to consider, require specific degrees in Agriculture, Forestry, or a particular science, not my business degree, so I may actually have to go BACK to school to get a decent job in the great outdoors!

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http://www.lindsayfarmonsilvercreek.blogspot.com/