What Students Really Say About Farmington


So, what initially attracted you to Farmington?
I had always heard good things about the science programs here. I talked to a few UMF graduates, all Biology majors, and every one of them talked about how well prepared they were and how the science programs were challenging enough. They said they had all the classes they needed to go on to graduate school and they had lots of really fun stories about their time with faculty members here. It seemed like a program that would really prepare me for the workplace or grad school.

Did you come in as an Environmental Science major?
Yes, I did. I chose it because it’s so incredibly relevant. There are so many environmental issues and I think there’ll be a huge demand for people and like any major. For me, I really wanted the environmental background because I’d like to do something related to science. I don’t know if it will be in Environmental Science but I know having the environmental background will benefit me in the workplace because there are just so many areas to which Environmental Science is relevant right now.

What can you do with an Environmental Science degree?
So many things. I took a class in Australia on Soil Science. If you want to go into Soil Science, you can do land-use assessment — figuring out how conducive the land is to plant growth or how erosive the land is, analyzing the different chemicals in the soil and trying to figure what kind of growth the soil can maintain and how it will react to extreme weather patterns. It helps you figure out what different plots of land are good for. But there are so many different things you can do with the degree, I don’t want to narrow it down too much.

Overall, being in Environmental Science is just so relevant right now; there’s a lot of focus on environmental issues. I know of several different state organizations tied to the Department of Environmental Protection, and the Department of Transportation has a huge D.E.P. link because practically everything they do requires an initial environmental impact assessment.

What do you like more generally about the program?
I like that it’s so challenging. What keeps me going in the Environmental Science program is that I’m never for a moment off my toes. It’s not a “coast through” program and you have to love science to get through it. It’s a lot of work and takes dedication to what you are doing — everything from working in small groups to produce a good final project, to doing big projects on your own. You really test your limits and push yourself. The range of classes is fantastic because you get a sense of just how far you can go in an Environmental Science career and also how many different directions you can go. I enjoy the challenge.

What do you like about the professors in Environmental Science?
I think the faculty here makes all the difference. I have a great relationship with every professor I’ve taken a class with — really! We’re on a first name basis and I know that when I look to go out into the field, my relationships with them will be really important. And every one of them has been great in helping me find jobs and putting me on the right path for grad school and beyond.

I’ve worked with one professor, Ron Butler [Professor of Biology] quite a bit — internships and working as a research assistant — and he is incredibly challenging and never lets me come in second to what my abilities are. Everything is full-on and you have to give your all when you’re working for him and that is so important for preparing me for life after UMF. It’s almost like his classes are already taught at the grad school level. He has very high expectations and that’s important. He never expects less than 100 percent and that keeps you from getting lazy.

Tell me more about your research assistant job.
Last summer, I worked for Ron Butler and the Maine Geological Survey on the Maine Damselfly and Dragonfly Survey. We were doing research primarily on Damselfly associations and secondarily on Dragonfly larvae, aquatic plant communities, and emergent communities and the condition of the waters. It was incredible. For two weeks at a time, we’d go out to this research station in Down East Maine, put on chest waiters at 6 a.m. every morning and go out to these ponds where it seems nobody has ever been before.

There are no paths to the ponds, so you park as close as you can and then spend an hour bush-whacking into them. You’re in these breathtakingly beautiful areas of Maine — ponds that are so isolated you don’t see another human for 10 days in a row. We’d go out in little inflatable boats and go dip-netting for dragonfly larvae. Then we’d run through the bogs and net damselflies. After we caught them, we’d identify them, put them in envelopes and ship them off to the Maine Damselfly and Dragonfly Survey collection site.

That is a very different experience.
And it was so fulfilling. It really felt like we were contributing to something and because of that, the team ended up publishing a scientific note — which is not a full out scientific paper but the precursor to a paper. We just published our note in a magazine called Argia. The piece focuses on a certain subpopulation of a species of Damselfly we found at one of the ponds and how it has markings that distinguish it from other members of its species. It has developed for whatever reason this one distinguishable characteristic that no other damselfly population has, so we’re offering hypothesis as to why that is. It was neat to find this population.

Have you done anything that cool in class?
Oh yeah. Just about everything in Environmental Science is a lab class, so we get to go out all the time and explore new things that nobody ever thinks about. Even the freshman-level classes are incredible. In Botany you go out and learn about tree species. You run around in the woods and in rivers, and measure trees and come to conclusions about things you never thought about before but now you’re really excited about it.

With every class I take, I start seeing things in a different way and my perspective changes. When I was taking Botany and saw a plant species I wasn’t familiar with, it gave me the drive to be that person who knows all the trees and can go out on a casual hike and toss around scientific terms like, “that’s a sugar maple, an Acer saccharum.” [Laughs.]

So have your Environmental Science classes influenced your way of thinking?
Definitely. You think about how environmental impacts often come as a result of disruptions in populations of micro biota as opposed to bigger mammals like deer and bear. You learn how the focus of concern for a lot of people tends to be on cute and fuzzy animals but maybe the concern needs to be on the animals that are slimy and practically invisible.

It forces your perspective to change quite a bit. You get so up-close to something every semester — there’s usually one big project that makes you focus on something you never would’ve thought about before. I think it helps shift people’s perspectives. The Natural Science professors here do a great job distributing the focus around all science areas so students get excited about things they wouldn’t normally be excited about.