From academic challenges and uncertainty to finding a purpose and sense of belonging with Environmental & Water Resource Economics
A small pivot makes a large and impactful change towards the EWRE major and leads to UA & UCSB summer internship collaboration
Taking a step back, every now and then, can give room for redirection and a restart toward more opportunities. Jake Breitweiser, an Environmental & Water Resource Economics (EWRE) undergraduate student, experienced just that during his academic journey.
Jake, originally coming from Byron Center, Michigan, enrolled at the University of Arizona (UA) as a business major in 2018. By his second year, he had switched majors several times due to uncertainty in what academic path he wanted to take. At the end of that year, Jake made the tough decision to drop out.
A few months following this decision, Jake enrolled in courses at Pima Community College (PCC) because he did not see this as the end of his college experience.
Fortunately, with PCC’s affordable courses, Jake discovered his interests in multiple disciplines, but mainly in business. He understood that business was the underlying area of interest for him, but wanted to still find his niche area of study. That is when a friend of Jake’s mentioned the EWRE major and piqued his interest in a whole new direction.
Jake explained, “It seemed like the perfect opportunity to apply the skills I learned in my business associate program through an environmental scope.”
After reaching out to AREC’s academic advisor, Danielle Pilar Buhrow, Jake was “caught off guard” in the best way possible. He explained that the department’s faculty and staff are the best part of his discovery of the major.
He continued, “I say ‘caught me off guard’ because she was the first advisor I had who seemed to care about the concerns I had as a student. She has gone above and beyond my expectations to ensure that certain pathways in school are feasible.”
Reaching out to the department was just the beginning of his path to more opportunities. Now in his final semesters at the University of Arizona, Jake completed another milestone achievement: a summer internship that honed in on his areas of study and passions in sustainability and agriculture.
With the help of a CALES internship advisor, Amanda Bogden, Jake discovered his interest in the Equitable Agriculture and Environmental Management Program, which is a co-partnered two-year internship between the University of Arizona and the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB).
The Program brings together twelve students from both universities, from several academic and personal backgrounds. As written on the internship application, the goal of the summer program is to “work towards building sustainability and justice concerns into STEM education in agriculture with a specific focus on recruiting, retaining, and supporting underrepresented students.”
Jake and the other students had the opportunity to analyze real data, work in GIS, complete R programming, and propose research conclusions involving equitable and sustainable agriculture.
The student cohort spent two weeks at UCSB, attending presentations and labs, working on statistical analyses, and producing group projects. Jake shared that through his coding and ArcGIS labs, he gained experience in statistical analyses using Calenviroscreen 4.0 data to provide quantitative and visual data for his group’s research hypothesis.
Jake and his project partners from UCSB were able to hypothesize and produce data on the correlation between hazardous waste sites and low birth weights in California. He explained, “It was incredible to hear the perspective of students who study areas I am not familiar with and to learn from their experiences studying those disciplines.”
Jake expressed his gratitude for his program experience, with great teamwork on the research project and overall program support from UA faculty, Professors Anna Josephson & Jeffrey Michler from AREC, and UCSB faculty.
When asked what advice he’d give students searching for research opportunities, Jake suggested, “Solely taking classes is necessary but to do work outside of the classroom can fill the void of not knowing what to do with the skills you learn in your courses. You also get to meet some incredible faculty and students.”
Having gone through uncertainty of what degree program he wanted to do, making a tough decision to drop out, restarting at PCC, then finally grounding himself within the AREC department with the EWRE major, Jake had to persevere and learn new traits.
Jake mentioned that consistency is the most important trait for an incoming AREC student, or any undergraduate student in any discipline. He said, “As a first-year student, it can be incredibly difficult to navigate academic pathways but there will always be help as long as you search for it.”
He concluded with a quote from Billy Strings that supported him through his academic journey: “Every day is just a new chance to stumble, just to end up gone like everything else.”
Jake explained, “Although it seems negative towards the end of the sentence, it’s a reminder that mistakes are going to happen but we’re not here forever, so might as well take the hits and continue with the faith that something good is coming ahead of you.”
Jake plans to remain in an environmentally relevant career within the next three to five years, where he can utilize his knowledge and skills gained from his academics both from business and environmental economics, and research experience in the Equitable Agriculture and Environmental Management Program.