Careers for a skier/outdoors person

mmccarthy81

mmccarthy81

Member
So I’m heading to college in the fall and am plagued with the decision of what to do with my life. I’m indecisive and there are plenty of majors that sound cool, although I’m leaning towards civil and environmental engineering. Out of curiosity, does anyone on here have a cool or unusual job that they could consider their career or know of some cool ones I could look into for some inspiration/influence? I’ve been looking into outdoorsy, in the field type jobs to see what I can possibly study and environmental engineer constantly comes up, but I’m curious to know what other types of options are out there.
 
I’m headed to CSU in the fall for forestry, mostly for the same reasons as your wanting to work outdoors. I feel like a lot of natural sciences do the trick too though
 
I’ve worked a lot of different outdoor jobs over the years. The list goes like this for me: Summer Canoe guide, winter camping guide/dogsled guide, state park night security guard, BLM range aid, lifty, county park worker, lifty, BLM recreation aid, lifty, helicopter ground crew member, lifty, helicopter ground crew member, lifty, helicopter ground crew member, highlands bow cat driver, helitack wildfire crewman, aspen mountain snow

Cat driver, helitack wildfire crewman, currently working again as snowcat driver on aspen mountain.

Planning to back to wildfire this summer and trying to get in with a work program for Antarctica next

Winter.

You could say I’ve made a career in outdoors.

If you want to work outside you don’t necessarily need a outdoor degree. Maybe if you want a certain specific job like be the park manager of Yellowstone NP.

But if you work on a business degree and just take on summer work as fishing guide or fight wildfire, it would probably look better on a resume.

I have two year degree in park and recreation. It might of helped me get my first couple jobs but I could of easily gotten those jobs with a high school education or liberal arts degree.

The big thing is see with people who say they want to work outdoors is once they are in the field they hate it.

Get a outdoor job like conservative corps or a guide job and see if you really like working outside all the time. It would also help you decide what kind of field you want to go into.
 
13886207:50Kal said:
I’ve worked a lot of different outdoor jobs over the years. The list goes like this for me: Summer Canoe guide, winter camping guide/dogsled guide, state park night security guard, BLM range aid, lifty, county park worker, lifty, BLM recreation aid, lifty, helicopter ground crew member, lifty, helicopter ground crew member, lifty, helicopter ground crew member, highlands bow cat driver, helitack wildfire crewman, aspen mountain snow

Cat driver, helitack wildfire crewman, currently working again as snowcat driver on aspen mountain.

Planning to back to wildfire this summer and trying to get in with a work program for Antarctica next

Winter.

You could say I’ve made a career in outdoors.

If you want to work outside you don’t necessarily need a outdoor degree. Maybe if you want a certain specific job like be the park manager of Yellowstone NP.

But if you work on a business degree and just take on summer work as fishing guide or fight wildfire, it would probably look better on a resume.

I have two year degree in park and recreation. It might of helped me get my first couple jobs but I could of easily gotten those jobs with a high school education or liberal arts degree.

The big thing is see with people who say they want to work outdoors is once they are in the field they hate it.

Get a outdoor job like conservative corps or a guide job and see if you really like working outside all the time. It would also help you decide what kind of field you want to go into.
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I kind of agree. I think that 'outdoorsy' job is a little bit too vague. By the time you're ready to graduate you will probably find that criteria such as how fulfilling the job is, the pay, are you learning skills for your future, ect.. are going to be more of a deciding factor than: is my job outside. But if you're not sure, try a business degree and take some outdoor summer jobs to get a feel if thats what you wanna do.
 
13886209:philipc said:
By the time you're ready to graduate you will probably find that criteria such as how fulfilling the job is, the pay, are you learning skills for your future, ect.. are going to be more of a deciding factor than: is my job outside.
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This guy gets it. So you now work outside which is what you love doing. This can make you hate being outside all day everyday till the weekend. The weekend hits and you want to spend more time outside? Spending a week inside working makes the outdoors that much more enjoyable.

You got two sides to the coin. Best of luck
 
All this is really true and I know myself well. I considered forestry or going park ranger route but y’all are right about not loving working outside all the time. This is specifically why I’m aiming toward the civil and environmental engineering major at u of u. I feel like I can use it to find something with a solid balance of desk and in the field work with a solid salary. I’ve just yet to find anything else with a solid wage that I can see myself doing after college and when I’m even older. Chances are I wouldn’t like to be out in a National Park all day every day but I also know that I wouldn’t be able to tolerate working 8 hours at a desk every single day.
 
13886445:DirtYStylE said:
This guy gets it. So you now work outside which is what you love doing. This can make you hate being outside all day everyday till the weekend. The weekend hits and you want to spend more time outside? Spending a week inside working makes the outdoors that much more enjoyable.

You got two sides to the coin. Best of luck
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I get that as a statement but it depends on the person. Some people like being outside. I don't mind a mix of both, but pretty much outside 100% unless I'm welding stuff, which I dig as well.

That said I don't think it's necessarily that my job is outside, just that I'm passionate about what I do.
 
topic:mmccarthy81 said:
So I’m heading to college in the fall and am plagued with the decision of what to do with my life. I’m indecisive and there are plenty of majors that sound cool, although I’m leaning towards civil and environmental engineering. Out of curiosity, does anyone on here have a cool or unusual job that they could consider their career or know of some cool ones I could look into for some inspiration/influence? I’ve been looking into outdoorsy, in the field type jobs to see what I can possibly study and environmental engineer constantly comes up, but I’m curious to know what other types of options are out there.
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If you want to continue to peruse fun outdoor activities and not eat top ramen you might want to consider a math/science focused degree...or some sort of sci tech focus,however don’t stress! You’ll figure it out the first year or two of your undergrad studies.take advantage of the resources on campus(advisory and internships)

skiing isnt cheap,and ramen gets old after the first week haha
 
I work as an engineering technician for a city Storm and Surface Water utility. It's kind of like what you are talking about. On one end of the spectrum there is like full on construction crews that dig up pipes and make repairs in the road, contract management for maintenance and replacement, etc. At the other end of the spectrum we have biologist that monitor stream health, track salmon runs, water quality, basically try to figure out if what we're doing actually makes a difference. Wouldn't hurt to have a civil engineering degree or a BS in environmental science, or public administration minor, something like that.
 
13886509:theabortionator said:
Quints or gtfo!!!
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Public service (Fire/EMS/Law Enforcement), municipal work, wildland firefighting, prostitution, selling weed to rich kids... trade school.

Depends if you want to work outside, or have a job that lets you get to the mountain all the time.
 
13886511:Casey said:
I work as an engineering technician for a city Storm and Surface Water utility. It's kind of like what you are talking about. On one end of the spectrum there is like full on construction crews that dig up pipes and make repairs in the road, contract management for maintenance and replacement, etc. At the other end of the spectrum we have biologist that monitor stream health, track salmon runs, water quality, basically try to figure out if what we're doing actually makes a difference. Wouldn't hurt to have a civil engineering degree or a BS in environmental science, or public administration minor, something like that.
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Thank you, I was hoping to get some responses exactly like this. Chances are, like I said, I will follow through with a civil and environmental engineering degree and was wondering what kinds of work can fall under this or other similar fields.
 
13886733:theabortionator said:
Whats the deal, what are the details, what's the story, got information? Sounds pretty dope.
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There’s Not to many details. I’m going back to my wildfire job in Minnesota. Look at thread this to learn more on wildfire.

https://www.newschoolers.com/forum/thread/854141/Wildfire-thread

And I’ve been trying for two years to get a job at PAE ((pacific architecture and engineers)the main work contractor in Antarctica). I’ve gone through the background process and many other job required procedures. Was on the extras list this year. I hopefully I get a job offer this summer and can go down there this next winter. I know a couple people down there and they all say it’s dope as fu.
 
Snowmaking... picture walking down a ski trail 11 hrs into a 12 hr shift its pitch dark in the middle of the night and all you have is a headlamp with tired battery's. its dumping natural snow and you are getting blasted in the face with a mixture of man made and natural snow cause its windy af. Digging out everything because of the natural snow burying shit quick. Not to mention your pants are now frozen solid because a hose blew and sprayed water all over you. Fuck i miss work
 
13886891:50Kal said:
There’s Not to many details. I’m going back to my wildfire job in Minnesota. Look at thread this to learn more on wildfire.

https://www.newschoolers.com/forum/thread/854141/Wildfire-thread

And I’ve been trying for two years to get a job at PAE ((pacific architecture and engineers)the main work contractor in Antarctica). I’ve gone through the background process and many other job required procedures. Was on the extras list this year. I hopefully I get a job offer this summer and can go down there this next winter. I know a couple people down there and they all say it’s dope as fu.
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Yeah for sure. I should take up some electrical skills to pad my resume and appky for a job down therem sure its tough to get. Would be epic though. Id bring my at gear for sure.
 
13889115:humpty said:
Snowmaking... picture walking down a ski trail 11 hrs into a 12 hr shift its pitch dark in the middle of the night and all you have is a headlamp with tired battery's. its dumping natural snow and you are getting blasted in the face with a mixture of man made and natural snow cause its windy af. Digging out everything because of the natural snow burying shit quick. Not to mention your pants are now frozen solid because a hose blew and sprayed water all over you. Fuck i miss work
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Picture a real mountain with vroommobiles and just going like braaappppp over piles and hitting the jumos in the park becauee mother fucking yolo bitches
 
13889144:theabortionator said:
Picture a real mountain with vroommobiles and just going like braaappppp over piles and hitting the jumos in the park becauee mother fucking yolo bitches
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Nothing like holdin er wide up closed trails. At pc though its like they dont want us to ride sleds. So much bull shit you gotta do before you can drive em
 
13889227:humpty said:
Nothing like holdin er wide up closed trails. At pc though its like they dont want us to ride sleds. So much bull shit you gotta do before you can drive em
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I guess it depends where you work and how big the place is. Even VR isn't bad because it's probably safer to have the guys take biles up then walking around the hill all night. I've worked some smaller places where they walked though.
 
13889126:B.Gillis said:
My best advice would be to stay undeclared for as long as you can or major in something that's very open ended like a basic environmental science degree or biology, whatever. The way I see it the more specific you get now the more specific you have to be while searching for a job. Keep it broad now and you open yourself up to a wide variety of job choices down the line.

Don't focus a ton of time and energy on figuring out your future job right now. What you think you want to do now and what you think you'll wanna do at the end of college will most likely be completely different. Just go to school and enjoy the time for what it is. Say yes a lot and try something new everyday because you never know what you'll fall in love with along the way.
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This so much. If you're going to college in the fall for sure, just take gen-ed classes, stuff you take no matter what your major is, you can spend 2-3 even 4 semesters doing this before you declare your major.
 
Healthcare as FUUUUUU or Fire, etc.

Go to PA school, med school, Nursing. Or work in environmental health (not just health of the environment but environment-related health). Make some money, be able to afford the things you love and the things you like. Travel, Ski, live in a sick-ass house, get a hot wife.

Work at a fire department. Get a degree though. paramedics do well-enough and they have wonderful schedules for outdoor leisure
 
13889233:eheath said:
This so much. If you're going to college in the fall for sure, just take gen-ed classes, stuff you take no matter what your major is, you can spend 2-3 even 4 semesters doing this before you declare your major.
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Yeah I applied undeclared because I’d rather do this than try to pretend I know what I want to do for sure and hop into a program. And if I can’t find something I’m sure about maybe I’ll even get the basic requirements done and then take a gap year or something idk. The reason I even made a thread like this is because I’m not comfortable just sitting back and assuming a desirable major will just jump out at me once I get to college. I’d rather at least get an idea as to what I might like to do rather than wait until the last second and potentially screw myself over or have to end up taking longer to graduate. Either way I’m not worried about it now and am going in undeclared, but I feel obligated to explore some possible options and to get thinking as to what I may choose to do.
 
13889381:mmccarthy81 said:
Yeah I applied undeclared because I’d rather do this than try to pretend I know what I want to do for sure and hop into a program. And if I can’t find something I’m sure about maybe I’ll even get the basic requirements done and then take a gap year or something idk. The reason I even made a thread like this is because I’m not comfortable just sitting back and assuming a desirable major will just jump out at me once I get to college. I’d rather at least get an idea as to what I might like to do rather than wait until the last second and potentially screw myself over or have to end up taking longer to graduate. Either way I’m not worried about it now and am going in undeclared, but I feel obligated to explore some possible options and to get thinking as to what I may choose to do.
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You are doing it right then. Generally you will know if you want to be in a STEM field, history field, teaching, etc. If you know generically what you want to do, then you can hit all your core classes for at least 1.5 years. Your core classes will be the same from engineering to physicist to even a medical type field. Just like a history core will be the same for modern history as it will be for early roman history. You dont need to get specific for at least a year if not up to 2.

I started as a business major and hated it. I switched to electrical engineering and nearly all of my credits tranferred to something useful because I just took core math and science classes as well as required english and history. I didnt dive into major classes right away.

As far as your civil or environmental engineering ideas, I will give you my advice form my experience in engineering school. The degree will be hard work to get but it will pay off coming out of school. You dont need to get straight A's to land a good job, but geting suitable grades will take a lot of work. You will make a lot of money and wont have a problem finiding a job ever. However, most engineering jobs are pretty demanding and unless you love it, you will learn to hate it. I love that I make good money and have time to go skiing, camping, mountaineering etc, but it is a pretty high stress job sometimes.

My disclaimer: I dont know much about environmental engineering. I am speeaking more to what I know which is electrical and mechanical engineering which would relate fairly closely to civil.
 
Like people above have said, take a bunch of different classes to see what you like.

I would strongly advise steering clear of business if you give the slightest shit about the outdoors. STEM or humanities/arts will be much more personally rewarding, unless all you're looking for is a way to make some money when you leave school, which is a very short sighted approach imo
 
13890879:K-Dot. said:
Like people above have said, take a bunch of different classes to see what you like.

I would strongly advise steering clear of business if you give the slightest shit about the outdoors. STEM or humanities/arts will be much more personally rewarding, unless all you're looking for is a way to make some money when you leave school, which is a very short sighted approach imo
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Yup, my only concern is finding something I love doing, but on a higher economic scale than living and skiing out of my car.
 
I am an electrical engineering major right now...Looking forward to working hands on in the hydropower section for the army core of engineers.

I love the outdoors, skiing etc.. But I honestly would rather keep my hobbies as hobbies. If I turned skiing into a fulltime job I think I would start thinking of skiing as my job... And in my off time I dont think I would want to do my "job"... Everyone is different though.

I do think it would be rewarding to have a part time job as a ski instructor or patrol, on weekends. That way you dont depend on it for the (low) pay, you'd just be able to share your passion for the sport.

You gotta find a balance between finding a job/skill that you love to do, and that's something that is hard to find over an internet forum...

Good luck, and hang loose, you'll figure it out!
 
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