What will your graduate years bring to the table? What will be your lasting mark on your community, society, or even the world? 
 
These questions might have been daunting and absent from the forefront of our thoughts in undergrad, but now as graduate students, these are the questions that will drive our research and fuel our passions. These are the questions we have to start thinking about NOW. 
    
I will tell you that I did not have an answer to these questions as an undergrad nor do I have them as a first-year grad student; but I will say that a recent experience has perhaps brought me one step closer to finding those answers. This first ah-ha moment happened when I travelled with my cohort to the Edwards Plateau where I met with the team I will be working with for the next three years and had hands-on experience with the tools I will be using to conduct research and collect data. The roads on the ranches were bumpy and dusty; there were gates to open if you rode shotgun, and the prickly pear and mesquite stretched as far as the horizon line. This would be my home away from TAMU for the next three years which meant it was time to get accustomed to raising the sensors from the water wells, collecting data, and paying attention to the soil and life it maintained. This was a place that knew science and had a long traditional history tied to the land.   
 
Those questions that seemed like they’d need answering in another lifetime now felt tangible and connected. That’s not to say I thought answering them would be easy at all; there was an infinite amount of puzzle pieces that could create multiple finished puzzles and it was my job to discover which finished product I needed. I would be collecting water well data in order to find a pattern of usage and drought, but various other factors could not be overlooked if the whole picture was to make sense. How did the limestone topography affect water travel? Does the abundant population of invasive axis deer and wild hogs contribute in a significant fashion to the decline of usable water? How do plant communities (native and invasive) contribute to the soil health and amount of water that is able to reach the water table versus becoming part of evapotranspiration? All of these questions to answer a seemingly simple question: is there anything we can do as landowners to better conserve our water?
 
I may not have the answer yet, but I know that what I find will be a part of the bigger solution.

 
So, back to you and your dreams and your goals and your impact. Even if your thoughts are in the infantile stages of answering this question, that’s ok. It’s the small steps taken, the little pieces of knowledge gathered, and the asking of questions that will build to your goal. It may take months or years of intensive studying through a microscope to find a faulty gene that can help doctors save lives. It may be volunteering at a preschool in your spare time to find that fostering the youngest of minds will be your lasting contribution. Or it may be traveling to the desert to study something as ‘basic’ as water to realize just how connected an ecosystem is – and that conservation never has a simple answer. 
 
– Kaelanne Quinonez
 
Kaelanne is a master’s student in the Department of Ranchland, Wildlife & Fisheries Management.