u/Illustrious-File691

Hi there, I have a GIS degree that I want to use for wildlife biology. Currently I am an Instrument Operator/Survey Technician at a Surveying firm in the US.
Since the beginning, I’ve wanted to pursue a career in Wildlife Conservation and decided to go the technical route. I am looking for advice, suggestions or guidance on where to start off pursuing a career as an Airport Wildlife Biologist.
As far as I’m aware, I will need to get Certified with the FAA and take some classes to get some basic training/understanding, then get some in person experience, and then get a certification.

I have some questions for those who might be able to give me some insight:

- Is joining The Wildlife Society necessary/required? Would it make things easier for me? Just want to know if they are the ones that manage everything within that sphere or if it’s a government entity that I need to pivot to.

- What does the job *actually* look like? I haven’t seen a whole lot of information about the job, but I know it can vary depending on the situation/location.

- How long does the certificate process take?

- What are the biggest challenges that come with this job?

I was recently hired at a company that will have me travel 100% to other states as a Survey Technician. The role was described to be about 10-12 hours a day for 5 days a week. I am terrified.
I am prone to getting consumed by my work and getting burnt out in the first few weeks because I want to take on more responsibilities and make a good impression (always work out sooo well 🙄). With that, I am afraid I won’t be able to handle all this work in a healthy, productive way. I know I need to slow myself down and take things day by day, so I’m starting a routine of applying 70% of myself to different tasks to see what that looks like.

I’d like to get some opinions and advice on how others manage their days and keep themselves sane during tough situations like this or just in general when life gets difficult. Stress just seems to overtake me and my mood and I’m tired of letting my jobs turn me into a tired, self-loathing monster.
I’d love to hear how you guys manage stress, approach your work, and manage to keep your work and personal lives from interfering. Anything helps!

I graduated last December with a BS in Geographic Information Science. I feel like my curriculum didn’t do enough to prepare me for what GIS jobs are actually looking for right now.
A big majority of what I was taught was using ArcGIS, Python, some R, very little QGIS, and even less SQL. I feel like I don’t know nearly enough about any of the tools being used in the industry right now.
I am really interested in GIS consulting work and working in the field as a technician/instrument operator, but nothing in my degrees curriculum prepared me for any of that.
Obviously there are steps I can take to fill this gap, does anyone have any resources or suggestions to help alleviate my concerns and lack of knowledge?