An ecologist's career may begin with coral studies in the Red Sea. Photo: WWF

In September, BIG formed a network for ecologists, called Future Ecologists. The aim is to create regular contacts between students, teachers and alumni and thus prepare the students for working life. By students is meant here primarily those who attend the Master's programme Ecology and Biodiversity.

The network had its first meeting at the end of September, but not many were able to participate that time. There was significantly better attendance at the second meeting held on 20 November.

Students and teachers

Eleven students participated in the November meeting. Some of them started the ecology programme last fall, but most started a year ago and are now working on their degree project. When asked what expectations they had from the network, almost everyone answered that they wanted to know more about what opportunities there are to get a job "out there". What tasks are there and how do you get your first job?

Two of the teachers on the program, Niklas Janz and Peter Hambäck, also participated, as did Birgitta Åkerman and Ann-Christin Lindås from BIG. Notes were taken by Margareta Ohné.

Alumni

Four alumni also came to the meeting. Two of them work at consulting companies: Jonas Rune at WSP, which is a very large company with global operations (67,000 employees in 40 countries!) and Mikaela Boltenstern at Ecogain, a much smaller but growing company with headquarters in Umeå.

The two other alumni came from well-established non-governmental organisations: Maria Bergström, who works with Stockholm's nature guides at The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, and Inger Näslund, who is a senior advisor in Oceans and Fisheries at WWF Sweden.

All four spoke in detail about their careers and duties. In connection with this, the students received some advice along the way:
- Don't be afraid to change the focus of your studies!
- It is not wrong to take short-term jobs, they provide experience and often lead to further work.

How the network should work

The purpose of the meeting was to consolidate the network, so when everyone had introduced themselves, the form for the continued activities were discussed. It was agreed to have two meetings per semester for the time being. During the upcoming spring semester, we are aiming for meetings in February and April. Seeing each other at half past five in the afternoon seems to work well.

Everyone who is part of the network has a list of the others' e-mail addresses, and it was emphasized at the meeting that it is perfectly ok to e-mail each other between meetings. Students are always welcome to contact alumni for advice and support!

In the future, each network meeting will have a special theme. Suggestions for themes were called for and there was a long discussion in which both students and alumni had many good ideas. An example is postgraduate education; several of the students said they were unsure if they wanted to do a PhD and they would like more information about what it means to be a PhD student in ecology. It is therefore likely that postgraduate education will be the theme of the February meeting.

Some wise words

During the discussion, many wise words were heard about what it is like to work as an ecologist. Finally, here are some examples.

• There is a crying need for ecologists outside of academia!
• It is important that people learn how nature works and we ecologists must teach them that! But it is a challenge to get natural scientists and social scientists to understand each other and speak the same language.
• Working with ecology (outside academia) means working with people. Understanding people and being able to communicate is important - so it's not wrong to learn a little pedagogy or psychology as well.