March 10, 2003
So You Want To Be a Graduate Student...What Do They Do, Anyway?
Anna Maher
Arielle Stein and Todd Newburger get an office! (Photo taken by Anna Maher.)
Are you thinking about going to graduate school? Are you wondering what it is exactly that graduate students do? As a graduate student you can apply for teaching assistantships and research assistantships that help pay for tuition. You are required as a graduate student to take certain classes and write and defend a thesis.
Below are examples of projects that Huxley geography graduate students Jori Burnett, Todd Newburger and Arielle Stein are currently working on for their theses. Burnett said the purpose of his thesis is to determine socially sustainable land uses for the Georgia Pacific pulp mill site. He said social sustainability implies a high quality of life. He said he decided to go into the graduate program because he wanted to find a job which involved helping the community "Since the city is growing so fast I want to help it grow in the right way," Burnett said. He said the community seems to agree that the best potential uses for this site would be those that link downtown with the waterfront, allow only small-sized buildings in order to keep the area pedestrian-oriented and encourage local downtown businesses to keep their doors open in the evenings and on weekends. Burnett is hoping to finish up his project this spring or summer. He hopes to get a job in working in community development. "I would like a job that involves talking to the community, seeing what they like or want, and trying to make that happen," Burnett said. Todd Newburger said he is studying the impact of recreation on a remote site in North Cascades National Park. He said fishing, hiking and camping seem to be negatively affecting the biological system and he is doing tests to determine the extent of the damage. He said he is looking at indicators of impact to the soil such as changes in amounts of organic matter and changes in soil compaction, water permeation, vegetation cover, and species diversity. "All of these are indicators that show an impact on biological processes such as plant re-growth and distribution," Newburger said. He said he is most concerned about the red heather that commonly grows in the area. The heather has branches that break easily. He said the heather is unable to regenerate like most other plants and often dies when disturbed by recreational activities. Newburger said the only major setback he had during the course of the project is the site’s location. "My study site is remote and difficult to get to," Newburger said. "Some of the original plans for scope and scale were made difficult by accessibility." Arielle Stein is just beginning her thesis project, which takes an environmental and economic look at various forest management plans for the timber lands surrounding Lake Whatcom, Bellingham’s source of drinking water. "The goal is to help show that intact forests have value beyond their timber value," Stein said. She said over half of the area surrounding Lake Whatcom, or 15,000 acres, are owned by the Department of Natural Resources, which contracts out these lands to logging companies. She said she knows these trees have value to people because they help ensure water quality and public safety by preventing landslides around the lake. "In 1983 there was a landslide that caused many houses to be washed into the lake near Smith Creek," Stein said. She said the state had to pay five million dollars in damages. What she wants to know is exactly how much value the standing trees have to humans in terms of dollars, she said. Humans also hold value for forest ecosystems, and she hopes to be able to quantify this value also. "As it stands now there aren’t dollar values for functions of ecosystems," Stein said. She said she plans to conduct a survey to determine people’s willingness to pay for the trees and their ecosystems. The survey involves sending out questionnaires to random areas of Washington state, she said. She said she is planning to determine from this information which forest management plan is most cost-effective.