 Hi everyone, I'm Jillian Nassunagara. I'm a senior here at UVM. I'm from Belmarnie, Jersey, right in the Jersey Shore, but I came to UVM because I was really passionate about the environment and I knew this would be a great place to study it. So I'm an environmental studies major in the College of Arts and Sciences, but you can find that major which is one of the biggest here at UVM in three different colleges. Calz, which is the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, CAS, College of Arts and Sciences, and the Rubenstein School on the Environment and Natural Resources. Right now we're standing in Centennial Woods, which is only one of UVM's many natural areas. So right here, I actually was just here a couple weeks ago teaching a lab as a teacher's assistant for ENVS-001, Intro to Environmental Studies, in which I got to take a bunch of underclassmen around this forest and talk about the history of the landscape and how people change the landscape and what the invisible factors in the invisible present are. And so it's really special at UVM. We have these spaces to not just learn in the classroom, but also outside the classroom. And that was really important for me as I'm a real hands-on learner. So right now I'm standing in Centennial Woods next to this Sugar Maple Tree, which is Vermont State Tree. This is only one of about a dozen natural areas that UVM owns. And you can come here just kind of on your own time, but also as a student I've utilized this space in many different classes. So a couple weeks ago I'm a teacher's assistant for Intro to Environmental Studies. And I brought a bunch of students out here to learn about how you can see phenological changes and also how changes in the landscape are perpetuated by human resource use. So this actually used to be farmland, but now it's new growth forest. And you can actually see signs of that in different places. And that was really important to me coming to UVM because I'm a hands-on learner and I love being in the classroom and learning about theory, but it's also just great to get outside and learn from it at the same time. As an environmental studies major you have to do a final project of some sort. It can be a thesis, a capstone, or kind of a course sequence of 200 level courses. I'm also a member of the Honors College so I'm doing a thesis. A thesis is kind of a passion project within your major in which you get to work pretty intimately with a faculty member to either do an experiment or a literature review, something that you're interested in answering some question about. So for me I'm really fortunate I got to partner with the New Jersey State Parks to help them understand how New Jerseyans perceive our natural public spaces and how we can bring more cultural and racial diversity to park visitorship. So I conducted a bunch of interviews, I collected a bunch of surveys throughout this summer, and basically it's a year-long process and then you defend your thesis with three committee members who are faculty members from various departments. My name is Mariah, I'm from Stratford, Connecticut and I'm currently studying wildlife and fisheries biology in the Rubinstein School for the Environment and Natural Resources here at UVM. I actually came into UVM already knowing I wanted to study wildlife biology, definitely one of the unique few that knows what they want to study coming into college. But actually all throughout high school I got the opportunity to work at a local zoo and we did a lot of conservation initiatives, actually got to form close relationships with the zookeepers and some of the animals that were a part of their collection and having that opportunity to just work so closely with staff and really get to learn about so many environmental issues that endangered species are facing, it made me decide that I wanted to devote the rest of my life and my career to doing whatever I could in the name of conservation and helping these species survive out in the wild just like I was seeing all of my friends who I've made and there's these new staff do with their career paths. So this building here is actually Leigh Platinum Certified. Leigh stands for leadership in energy and environmental design and it basically is a scale on how sustainably built a building is. Platinum is the highest certification on that scale so it just shows the Aiken Center's commitment for sustainability and the environment. All of the wood paneling in this building was actually sustainably harvested from the Jericho Research Forest. The floor in the Aiken Solarium is made up of crushed recycled glass and plastic water bottles. The boulders here were collected from the original construction site for this building and St. Albans and then placed here around to create this beautiful room that we are currently in. All of the plants here are not native to Vermont but what is really cool is there is no internal heating or cooling that happens to maintain the constant temperature they need to survive. The windows actually have very sensitive sensors which will open or close accordingly to make sure this room stays at a constant temperature. Having a first-year students into Rubenstein are actually required to take a first-year class titled Natural History and Human Ecology otherwise known as NR1 and it has to be one of my favorite classes I've taken in my time here at UVM so far. So NR1 even though it's the whole Rubenstein first-year class that was around 160 of us my incoming year. It's a large lecture where you get to learn about all areas of the environment so you touch upon a little bit of environmental science, environmental studies. You have to memorize a couple of tree species and you get to talk about wildlife tracking but what's great is outside of that lecture portion of the class you have a smaller lab group which you meet with once a week and for four hours that week you are going to all different areas of Vermont to take what you've been learning and lecture and apply it out into the field. Just some of my favorite labs that I love to highlight were our trip on the Melisaira, our research vessel where we got to go out on Lake Champlain and collect phytoplankton samples and talk about how harmful algae blooms can potentially decimate lake ecosystems. We also got to take the gondola up Mount Mansfield and then hike the rest of the way up to the top of the peak and as we were doing that we were talking about how about vegetation changes as you increase in mountain elevation but I have to say my favorite lab of all was when we were talking about small businesses and fisheries for that week so we went to a local fishery on the Champlain Islands for the first portion of the class and then we went to a local orchard also located on the islands where Ray and Pam the farmer and his wife took us out into the orchard where we got to talk about his production actually collect some apples from his orchard and then Pam made us apple pie and gave us maple creamies and let us go in with their donkey and it was just such a great wholesome lab I'm definitely going to remember that after my time here at UVM is finished and I love that that very first semester I was here I was already able to get my hands dirty get to actually experience what it means to get a career in the environmental field and I'm glad that all first year students get that opportunity able to work with was a fantastic experience and really made me want to devote the rest of my life to studying the environment and doing anything I can in the name of conservation and Rubenstein just seemed like the perfect place to accomplish that goal because as one of the smallest colleges in the University of Vermont I really loved that I was able to get that close-knit family feel in my home college while also getting all the resources of a larger research-based institution that UVM is and the reason why I finally picked to come and study here at UVM was I came back after I got accepted for an admitted students day and just going on another tour of campus seeing all the students enthusiasm for the news perspective students and that very same day I was actually able to meet with the head of the wildlife and fisheries biology department within the Rubenstein school and seeing how he was answering all my questions and calming me down from all my fears about coming to college he just was prioritizing all of my concerns and I was thinking wow I'm not even committed I'm not even a student of UVM but I'm being treated so warmly like I can see a space for myself here and definitely there is a space for me here at UVM and I'm glad I made that decision so right now we are in the Rubenstein stewards office and I personally am one of the Rubenstein stewards so the stewards are a group of undergraduate students which are basically here to serve the undergraduate population of Rubenstein have you have any questions concerning our core curriculum organizing your schedule for next semester if you're looking for an internship or career or you have one in mind and you want someone to review your resume or your cover letter and are just a little daunted by presenting that cover letter and resume to your professor or your academic advisor our office is always open and you can come in and have one of our undergraduate students help you out anyway we can we have weekly office hours for all of our stewards and we love having drop-ins and we're basically just here to cater to our Rubenstein population and I really love being able to have that leadership role and provide support for other students who are going through some of the same experiences I am when it comes to academic advising first year Rubenstein students are given a first year advisor and they're able to get a really close relationship with that advisor through one of our core classes and our six race and culture where you're meeting once a week to talk about big topics of race and culture in the environmental sector but then you're branching out from that big lecture class to actually meet in a small course with your academic advisor as the professor and around 20 or so other students who also have that same academic advisor for the year so it's a great way to really form personal relationships with those other first year Rubenstein students and your academic advisor moving forward after that first preliminary year you are given an academic advisor in your career field so for example since I'm a wildlife and fisheries biology major my advisor is actually the head of our department and that's been really great for me because he knows so much more about my major and so much more about careers in the wildlife sector than I could ever find out by just looking online and he's been able to give me so much support when it comes to finding internships getting credit for those internships pursuing a minor outside of the Rubenstein school and kind of just getting a bigger feel for what my area of study is and I'm very thankful for having him there and then I also have another advisor who is in the Dean's office in Rubenstein tied to a grant that actually got through the college and she's more of like my life advisor I'll go into her office and be like Marie I just need to take a break I just need to talk through some things and she's always there to give me a warm mug of tea