Opinion Columnist for The Daily Reveille
During the summer of 2010, I worked part-time for LSU's student newspaper, the Daily Reveille. I wrote a dozen opinion columns in total, several of which were germane to the erstwhile BP oil spill response. I tried to inject caustic humor through embellishment, caricature, and hyperbole, into my pieces to lend levity to otherwise dour stories about the spill response.
Environmental Surveyor for Stratus Consulting Inc. (and NOAA, by proxy)
Concurrently, I was working seasonally for an environmental consulting firm, Stratus Consulting, contracted by the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). It was a busy but formative summer for me as a young adult. This job was my most important and lucrative to date. I had the opportunity to work alongside college graduates and learn professional workplace decorum, prioritizing, and organization.
The purpose of the project was to assess the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on recreational fishing in the Gulf states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida). My task was to survey recreational fishermen at public and private marinas and boat launches across the Louisiana coast (going as far west as Cameron and as far east as Slidell).
Additionally, I had the good fortune of being rehired for the project the following summer, in 2011. I am a native Louisianian, but over the two summers I worked on this project, I cultivated an appreciation for the Cajun and creole idiosyncrasies that differentiate our state's culture as supremely unique.
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Co-President of Geology Club at LSU (Fall 2011-Spring 2012)
Since being elected to the officer corps of the Geology Club in late Spring of 2011, I have been volunteering at small, educational outreach events with the club. These functions are usually geared toward younger audiences (such as girl scouts or elementary school children) and involve introducing samples of minerals or fossils to the youngsters. Typically, we will give the kids pieces of graphite or talc to write with, halite (rock salt) to lick, sulfur to smell (malodorous!), magnetic lodestone to test with a magnet, or geometrically cubic pyrite, fluorite, or galena to marvel over.
Geology Club officers with the girls of "YouthALIVE!" at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum (January 2012). We toured a scientifically-themed exhibit with the girls and discussed the geological significance of the pieces, before showing them a medley of fossils and minerals. Photo credit: Elizabeth Ingram.
Besides community service work, the club hosts meetings about once a month to discuss upcoming events, plan field trips, eat pizza, and fraternize. We have recently begun a semi-monthly tradition of "Bad Geology Movie Night" featuring snacks and campy disaster and sci-fi B-movies. The club's official Facebook page houses an online forum that is a hotbed of geological and miscellaneous discussion for members.
Since Fall 2011, the Geology club has embarked upon field trips to Tunica Hills, LA, The Houston Museum of Natural Science, TX, and The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN. At the time of writing, a May 2012 trip to Red Bluff, MS is upcoming.
Since Fall 2011, the Geology club has embarked upon field trips to Tunica Hills, LA, The Houston Museum of Natural Science, TX, and The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN. At the time of writing, a May 2012 trip to Red Bluff, MS is upcoming.