- We will talk about careers, how about that?
So, what in the world did you have to study
or what were you interested in that really made
you decide to do this kind of work?
- Well, for me, I got involved in this
by working with the Student Conservation Association
when I was in my undergraduate which I think I have
a fellow SCA member here by the name of Chad.
But, I got a job through Student Conservation Association
at Carlsbad Caverns National Park,
which is Lena's favorite cave.
And through that I became interested in caves
and interested in how they form
and then through another job with
the Forrest Service up in the Tongass National Forrest,
in southeast Alaska, I became interested
in how our activities on the surface,
our management activities, impact water
in caves in the subsurface.
And so I studied geology, and geography,
cartography, mapping caves, and hydrology.
Those sorts of things.
- Interesting, similar story?
Different story, Barb?
- Pretty much, it may be different.
I went to the University of Tennessee at Martin
as for my bachelors and so at first I took all
the geology, and biology, and geography classes
and that's what gave me a very broad background
in geology and biology to be able
to marry those two programs within paleontology.
So, I've been a paleontologist, fell in love with
it the first quarter 'cause geology just came easy
to me and then when we hit the third quarter
of historical geology, which had the fossils
in it and all the animals and all...
- Dinosaurs!
- I was absolutely struck, 'cause I love animals too.
So it married the best thing.
Rocks and fossils.
- So, like Barb, I studied geology for my undergraduate,
but it wasn't until I took a class about geomorphology
and caves that I fell in love.
Our professor took us caving and I knew I wanted
to learn more about those caves.
And so I started studying hydrology.
So if you're interested in caves, you also need
to learn what happens with the water.
If you're interested in one science, you might want
to combine them, so I also did some hydrology
and then eventually I did paleo climate which
is something you might not think about it,
but we can get information about what the climate was
in the past studying the caves and that's what I did.
So, there are many things you can study.
You can study biology, you can study geology,
geography, hydrology.
So if you wanna be a scientist, and this
is something that you like, there
are many opportunities for you.
- That's the cool thing about science,
I mean, you can study anything. Right?
Find out what you're interested in and study it.