VIU's RMOT students protecting the environment

My name is Janelle McNish and I'm with the Bachelor of Natural Resource Protection and I'm in third year with Vancouver Island University. I chose resource management because I would like to work outside and be in the outdoors. I don't want to be cooped up in an office all the time. The kinds of things we learn about in the program are basic legislation, so the laws of fish and wildlife. We learn about parks and recreation, keeping our environment healthy and clean. You can learn about different parts of wildlife, of fisheries. The list goes on. It's a really open and broad course. I like the things that I'm learning because I like to see how things work together. I like to see how the ecosystems work together, what we can do to prevent our ecosystems and our wildlife from being damaged by the things that we're doing today. I'm a conservationist at heart. One good thing about this program is it's a two-year diploma for the resource management officer technology, but you do have the option of going on for another two years and getting a Bachelor of Natural Resource Protection. I really like this program because it's a really tight-knit community. We're all backing each other up. It's like we're all a bunch of brothers and sisters. Our profs are spectacular. We get a lot of one-on-one time and they really care that we do well. Some of the hands-on stuff that we get to do in the program would be stream surveys. We get to do fish dissections. We do a biology course where there's a couple different dissections. You really get to see how things work and you get right into the thick of it doing some field work. I'm really happy to be a part of this program and I'd recommend it to anyone.