Hi all, sorry in advance for all my questions, but I'd appreciate any input! I graduated several years ago from UC Davis with a BA in psychology. For various reasons, I obliterated my GPA my first two years, then changed my major and slowly dragged it back up to a 3.1 by the end of my fourth year. I was happy just to graduate with a degree and had no plans for grad school. Now I'm considering going back to school and finding something I'm a little more passionate about to study and start a career in. I've been obsessed with animals my whole life and keep ending up back at animal jobs, since animal care and behavior are the only thing I have experience in and am passionate about, but I've found that I am still stuck at mostly seasonal or dead-end minimum wage entry level jobs. This and my desire to work outdoors and my love of nature have me considering the Fisheries, Wildlife & Conservation Biology masters program at North Carolina State University, but I have no idea where to begin. I know my GPA is not very competitive, my degree is pretty unrelated, and I have no letters of recommendation. The website states that many applicants come from different fields though and that there are no specific coursework requirements. Their GRE scores don't look too impressive either, so maybe I could make up for my GPA with my GRE scores? Or maybe I'm in way over my head? I have no idea how competitive this program actually is. I contacted the school, hoping to find an advisor to talk to about specific course requirements, but was directed to the director of the program, who advised me to direct my questions to the faculty members, as my admission will depend directly on one of them agreeing to mentor me and each of them have their own expectations and requirements for admission. So, I have a few questions. 1. Does applying to this masters even sound feasible in my position or would I need to go back and get another bachelors before even considering this? 2. If it is feasible, what should I do next? Would I need a more solid science background at a community college first? (mine is pretty basic) Are there volunteer opportunities or some way to find wildlife biology experience? Should I contact faculty members? What would I say? Having no background specifically in wildlife biology, I'm not exactly sure how I would even choose what area I would want to specialize in yet, and I wouldn't want to make a poor impression with my clueless questions and lack of direction so far. 3. How would I go about getting letters of recommendation? Not only is my degree in the wrong field, but I was in mostly large classes of a hundred students or more and was a very quiet student, and the professors have had hundreds of students since, so I seriously doubt any of my professors would even remember me. 4. The director of the program mentioned in his email that "Admission is competitive and faculty most often take students only when they have external funding" Does this mean you need scholarships/fellowships to apply, or simply that the school will not be funding your degree and it will be out of pocket? And if I need a fellowship, what is the best way to go about finding one? Currently I am studying for the GRE, trying to find a job as a veterinary assistant, and applying to volunteer at Duke's lemur center. Thanks for reading my rambling post and please excuse my ignorance.. I greatly appreciate any advice! I'm open to different ideas too.. I'm also extremely interested in animal behavior, evolutionary anthropology, primatology, etc, but wildlife bio seemed like it would offer the most job prospects.