BrdNerd

I have 2 offers with very different field work: One of them involves really intense months of hiking, nest and bird identification, mist netting, and tracking. It sounds amazing, but I’ve never been backwoods camping for example, and have limited field experience. I wondered if anyone else had deep dived into this sort of intense fieldwork and what feedback you could share? The other involves fieldwork but is much more computational. In fact, if I didn’t want to do fieldwork they’d be fine with it (I do!). I’ll really have to push to incorporate more theoretical analysis into the first option. The other things to consider are pretty equal between the two: great funding (relative to cost of living where they are), amazing supportive advisors (I’ll feel rotten telling either I’m not coming), good group of grad students in the lab, great programs. The first one is closer to my partner, so clear bonus, but I’m worried about getting there and discovering I’m not cut out for it. >_<

I have great offers from two schools: One a Natural Resources Department and one an EEB. I’m hoping to get hired in a traditional biology department afterwards where my partner is. I’ve read online that some traditional biology departments look down on Natural Resources because they’re so applied and less theoretical. I wondered if anyone had insight into this? These do seem like very traditional departments: NSF grants and a rockstar professor in EEB and USDA grants + conservation contracts in SNRE.

Anyone hear from EEB or CEB? I accidentally stumbled into a lit PhD results page where they were discussing fake early results in the results section. The results section said invited were sent out 12/15 and they’re only taking 4 people. Holding out hope that’s not true!