I will be graduating from The College of New Jersey on May 16th (finally).  It’s been a long journey, but the end is finally near.  This is my last week of student teaching, and Wednesday will be my last final exam of my undergraduate career.

I will finish with a Bachelor’s of Science in Health and Exercise Science and teacher certification for K-12 Health and Physical Education in the state of New Jersey.  The obvious job route for me to take would be to find a Physical Education teacher position in a public school, but if you know anything about me, you know I love adventure and settling into a daily routine isn’t exactly my cup of tea.  So, I have been applying to a few facilities and companies around the country that offer outdoor and environmental education, hoping to land a job working as a tour guide, naturalist, outdoor education instructor, or similar.  The pay is pretty awful (especially compared to what I could make if I got a teaching job in my area), but I would be doing what I really love and I would get to travel and see new places.

Sunday, I got an email back from one of the places I applied to, Snow Mountain Ranch as part of the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado, offering me a part time position.  They actually offered me two positions, one as a lifeguard for the summer (6/1/2008-8/15/2008) and one as an outdoor education instructor for the fall (8/15/2008-10/1/2008).  June 1st is way sooner than I expected, and the whole term adds up to four months.  While it sounds exciting, it is also a bit scary!

I have not yet decided what I want to do.  Part of me wants to go out there.  But, Chris won’t be able to come along.  If I accept the position, I give up my summer in the Northeast, which means camping in the Adirondacks and photographing loons, as well as finding all of the herp species I’ve been hoping to photograph.  I won’t even have the option of teaching when I return, because all of the schools will have started their full term contracts in September, when the students go back.  I trade in a $40k/yr job for one that gets me $200/wk.  Once I commit, I also cut out any of the other outdoor job opportunities I have applied for.  And, I re-enter the lovely world of community living arrangements.  While I can apply for a single room, there is no guarentee I won’t be placed in a double or triple, and regardless of the room I have, there are community facilities - bathrooms, laundry, etc. 

Of course, Colorado has elk.  And mountains.  And moose and sheep and wolves and foxes and coyotes and mountain lions.  You get the idea.  I actually applied to the YMCA because I visited for a student leadership conference last October, so I know what the place looks like (and I also know the food isn’t that good, but that’s one for the “cons” paragraph).  I’ve seen photographs from Rocky Mountain National Park.  The photo opportunities would be fantastic.  And I would get to teach Outdoor Education, which means hiking and ropes courses and educating people about nature.  Now that’s way more my style than teaching basketball in a gymnasium.

So what do I do?  I’m still very much undecided, and I only have until May 19th to give them an answer.  Colorado would be a huge risk (one that would have me away from Chris and returning with little to no cash), but the experience would be out of this world.