A group of undergraduate students taking a marine biology class at Southern Virginia University spent a weekend at Horn Point Laboratory to learn about the lab’s research and gain fieldwork experience.
Interim Provost and Biology/Environmental Studies professor, Dr. Samuel Hirt, and Tyler Orr, Director of the Hugh & Cindy Redd Launch Center at Southern Virginia University led the trip. The Hugh & Cindy Redd Launch Center provides career services for students.
Tyler generously shared insights on the value that this type of experience provides both for students, and for those in roles like his, guiding students as they explore their future career opportunities.
Read Tyler's words below.
One of the things I love most about leading Career Services at Southern Virginia University is the chance to be engaged in and learn about so many different career fields!
Last week I traveled with our Interim Provost and Biology/Environmental Studies professor, Dr. Samuel Hirt, and a group of about 15 students in his marine biology class to Horn Point Laboratory (and the Horn Point Oyster Hatchery there), operated by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES).
We stayed a couple of nights in bunk houses onsite, and the students collected samples for testing, interacted with a few jellyfish, learned about oyster farming and environmental impacts (I had no idea oysters are filter feeders that clean the water around them - an adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water/day! The more you know...), got stuck once or twice in the mud, climbed a MASSIVE oyster shell mountain, and got a little taste of what it feels like to get out of the classroom and do some field work.
For us in Career Services, these kinds of trips are incredibly valuable, for both learning and relationship-building:
- I got a sense of what the work (and its purpose) looks like in a space in which I have never personally had a job or degree
- I began building relationships with folks who could potentially be (or introduce me to) mentors, hiring managers, or grad school advisors for our students and graduates
- I continued developing my relationship with Dr. Hirt, who is such an asset to this campus and a blessing to our students. When you are a small Career office supporting a wide variety of programs, you know you can't become a subject matter expert in every space - among other things, you have to build strong relationships with faculty and administrators to expand your reach, and this was a great way to do it
- I got to know many students who I had either never talked to before, or with whom I had only had quick, casual hallway interactions previously. Given my job title, most of these conversations eventually made their way around to what they want to do with their lives - and I think most of them are much more likely now to come to the Launch Center (our Career Services office) to bounce ideas around and get support. Call it "marketing" if you like - being present where the students already are for events like this and having personal conversations with them goes a LONG way in helping them see us as a resource
I am very grateful to Dr. Hirt for the invite, and excited to stay engaged with Horn Point and the UMCES and see if we can get students interning or attending grad school with them in the future! On that note, thank you for the warm welcome, Professor Judy O'Neil, Donna Stotts, Emily Coleman, and Claire Otterbein. I am excited to reach out to you about how we can start to make more SVU students aware of the great opportunities at Horn Point!
