Thinking Outside the Department - Looking at Diverse Course Opportunities

Lindsay Martinez

“What’s one thing you would change about your college experience?” This is a question that I am often asked when I speak to high school students who are applying to college. For three years so far, I have participated in a volunteer program with my alma mater to provide alumni interviews to undergraduate applicants. Every year, at least a handful of the students will ask me the question about what I would change.

In my answer, I explain that I wished I had taken better advantage of the diverse course opportunities in college. I would have tried to take every class that interested me, not worrying that I was pushing off university or department requirements for another semester. Those courses that really interested me would be a fun and exciting class experience. If I put them off, I ran the risk of missing out in case they were not offered again. I made the mistake in college of frontloading my four years with all the required and not-so-fun courses that I had to take. I skipped out on some different interesting seminar classes to power through my math and writing classes, for example, as soon as I could. As a result, I didn’t have the most positive experience I could have had for my first three semesters or so of college.

In graduate school, there are less strict requirements on coursework since there are no longer any general education requirements. Of course, there are class needs to get all the credits for your degree in your department, but I think there is some flexibility too. Unfortunately for me, in my first year of my master’s degree, I yet again found myself taking too narrow of classes and not branching out to explore different things that interest me. I took all classes from my home department or similar departments. I didn’t even explore around to see what else was out there that might be exciting to participate in and might contribute well to my overall education and career goals. It was what I did in college all over again. 

This year, I am working to open my mind up to other possible coursework opportunities in different departments that interest me. After all, this is the final school year of my master’s degree - if I don’t take advantage of my opportunities now, they will be gone. It’s well worth just taking a class because it looks interesting. This semester, I am taking a class on Military Lands Sustainability from my home department of Rangeland, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management. I would never have even thought about taking a class about the military before this year. However, I recently learned about the role military lands can play in endangered species conservation, so I signed up for the class to learn more. I think that taking myself outside of the type of subjects I usually study will be very valuable to me. Already, reading about Department of Defense strategies and how they look at natural resource stewardship has been a completely different experience for me because I’ve never read anything written from a military perspective.

In addition to classes in my department, I also decided to take a class in the Bush School. The course is about advocacy in nonprofit organizations. I think the class is excellent for me because I am interested in having a future career working in a nonprofit that focuses on wildlife conservation. In this class I have been learning strategies for advocacy that will benefit me in my future career. I’ve learned how important it is for nonprofits with highly valuable missions to take themselves off the sidelines and get in the game to advocate for positive policies. Just as nonprofits have to be brave enough to get to work on policy advocacy and not just their usual
programmatic work, I have to be bold enough to take classes in other departments. I have to advocate for myself to get the most out of my graduate experience. To me, that means taking meaningful classes for my future career and taking classes that I will enjoy right now in the moment. 

As a graduate student, I don’t always have time for everything when I’m already busy conducting research, taking classes, and planning for a productive career. But I think I can always make time for an outside-of-the-box course that will challenge me and get me excited about coursework.