Warner College Webinar: Overview on Learning Outdoors (3 p.m.)

Hello everyone.

Welcome to our web and R for Warner College. Before I keep going, can I get some folks to let me know whether they can hear me and see me?

Just type in the chat, yes?

Or anything along those lines.

Awesome, thank you for that feedback, appreciate it.

Cool, so hello again everyone. My name is Jay Kaliati. I am the recruitment and coordinate recruitment and engagement coordinator for College of Natural Resources. Always a fun one to say and definitely had to repeat myself there, but basically going we're going to be going through today. Kind of an over academic overview of Warner College. Give you some insight of what the experience is like as a student and Warner College of Natural Resources. And then after I want to say at least probably 30 minutes.

So 3330 at Mountain Standard Time will switch over to a Q&A to answer any questions that you have with my student ambassadors, so they'll be able to kind of give you some of that student experience, insight as well as answer any cool and pressing questions that you have. So feel free to get ready to grill him with some great questions. So again, my name is Jake already. I'm essentially the admissions counselor for Warner College, and so recruitment is in my title.

And kind of being an admissions counselor, but for me I just wanted to define that for you, give you some clarification. That's about student success. And so whenever I talk to students and their families, or even do these webinars or anything along those lines of sharing information and resources, it's about student success. And so if you feel like you're going to be successful here at CSU as well as in Warner College, Awesome. If you feel like you're going to be successful elsewhere, I'm happy to support you with those decisions. And if you need any resources.

Well, let me know so we'll get started and we're just going to break down a little bit of resources from CSU. So first is our principles of community. These are our community, CSU as well as a more college which is really important for us to really understand these community values. Because we are land grant institution and we really encompass these values. But at the same time order colleges and Natural Resources based college. And so you might not think of it right away. But we are really tight knit community we have.

Basically, 1718 students currently enrolled as undergrads in this college, and that's kind of a small chunk of students out of about 33,000, right? So we are a tight knit community and having a community really matters, but also making sure that everyone is feeling safe, happy, and healthy in that community is also very important. So again, these are those are the community values we aspire to have to make sure this community is tighten it everyones getting along and everyones working together in a collaborative process so.

Those community values are inclusion, integrity, respect, service and social justice.

Moving on to the Warner College experience, I'm going to be talking a little bit about how our students do, how successful our students are generally, as well as what gets them to be successful. And so if you kind of follow some of these, what I'll call high impact practices. Definitely some higher education jargon for ya, but basically things that students get involved in or take part in or have to complete to really kind of push themselves forward in their careers and their professional development.

So with that, that's the Warner experience for the Warner Effect. We like to call it 83% of our Warner grads secure jobs or feature education within six months of graduation. That's really great. Basically, really good number there. Good average, and this is because of these bullet points on the left here, also known as high impact practices. So you have experiential learning in the field. We can't do natural resources work without being outside and getting our hands dirty, right? So?

A lot of Greeley great classes that we have their field based classes so students maybe take a lab class, further field work or have a full fledged field color course. One of our famous field course is called NR 220 Natural Resources, Ecology and measurements. This takes place in CSU Mountain campus. This is an hour and a half away from our residential campus in Fort Collins. Up here and then students stay up in the cabins for four weeks up in the campus which is borders.

Rocky Mountain National Park as well as Roosevelt National Forest. So really great site. Super awesome to hang out up there. It's also the CSU community space so not just our students are up there. Anyone around CSU can be up there at the moment seeing with our current health restrictions. No one is up there besides the staff members working up there.

We'll talk a little bit more about mountain campus and feel free to ask questions about that. That's a really good thing to kind of dig into his stuff. Free field work and not the campus, so we also have new student seminars. These are taught by your academic advisor and these are for every major in the college.

And so it's new. Student seminars are really intentional to make sure we students get connections with employers, faculty members, as well as even what the work is going to be about in terms of their major. And also make sure they're in the right spot as well as this intentional portion of this. These seminars are is to be connected with your academic advisor, so they kind of know you. You get to know them, so there's some pretty cool classes. For example, we did a for the forest and rangeland stewardship students. We went to.

Color state, forestry, nursery and got to see all the different trees that were being grown for every portion of Colorado. So that was pretty awesome. I mean I'm going to. It's awesome 'cause I'm biased. I work for the college right? But I think our students got a lot out of it and some of them got some work experience out of it as well. Just because they got to meet some cool folks. So we also have study abroad opportunities. These are very abundant and one I'd like to talk about. Given example is our total Santos Mexico campus.

It here it's a Csus campus in Mexico and students studying different aspects of our majors will be able to do some classes over there. So it's really great way to be next to the water. If you're someone that's really looking into kind of Aquatic Sciences as well as this really cool rangelands and looking into forestry as well over there.

Undergrad research opportunities are really abundant in great. Those can also be coupled with. I would say the bottom 3 bullets. It can kind of be coupled together kind of mixing those experiences and then we also have internship San. A lot of students start internships. Usually the summer of their after their freshman year. So we really get a lot of students heavily engaged in those opportunities. Kind of right from the get go so right after they've done their first classes in their major.

They get to kind of start that that the journey through doing an internship.

So moving on to Warner College introduction, I'm going to take a simple water before I keep going. Just 'cause I'll be talking my head off today so appreciate the patience.

Great thank you all. So I'm moving on to basically going through our academic Department in our centers and institutes so academic departments. We have five of them and they house all of our academic programs and majors. So the first ones ecosystem science and sustainability. Then you have fish, wildlife and Conservation Biology, Forster, Rangeland Stewardship, Geosciences, an human dimensions of Natural Resources. And I'll be going through each Department in their major a little bit, but also want to mention our centers and institutes.

On the right side of the slide here and so you have Center for collaborative conservation and Environmental Learning Center. Those are the two I'm going to kind of talk about. There is definitely more information on the others. Feel free to visit our website on our research and outreach side on the website so we have Center for collaborative conservation. This is a really great Center for us that's does a lot of research and outreach, especially outreach during this going to be.

During this November, of course, just because we this center has found a basically a pack of Wolves in different portions of Colorado and also the basically Midwest, and so we're just making sure to kind of give as much education and exposure to put that on the ballot. If people are interested in having Wolves being reintroduced into natural areas. So just something to keep in mind and kind of some cool news to share.

If you agree or disagree and we definitely have had some dialogues about whether people are really interested or not, so definitely want to explore there and then we have environmental Learning Center. This ELC for short. This is a really great center that we support is because it's a lot about environmental education and that's usually for students K through 12 in the Colorado system. So really great opportunity also for current students to be paid to.

Educate students about natural resources, the environment, and get them interested in that. Whether they decide they want to do that for the rest of their lives. Like maybe some of you do, or just to have kind of more of a connection and love for our natural world. So really great opportunity and students get to be paid hourly to do workshops as well as a look after kids or be a mentor, so.

Great opportunity there. So then we have our academic departments. We have all of our majors under those. I understand that the Rams head on this slide can get in the way of some of the text to see the majors, but will get go right through all and hopefully you didn't miss your major that you might be interested in. Or all of the majors you're interested in. So we have the first Department is ecosystem science and sustainability. The majors are ecosystem science and sustainability, and then watershed science.

So ecosystem science and sustainability is the first major I'll go over. And so this major is about understanding natural resources in a holistic approach and looking at all the different issues that we see. And so we study the issues in four different lenses, a cultural lens of political lens, an economic lens in a social lens, and so students that really get to kind of evaluate all of earth or earth system to work and function. But at the same time see those issues play out and see the different impacts of those issues.

And so students that are interested in this major in particular tend to kind of goes to through two different buckets, more of like a research an potentially education side or leadership side. Sometimes they're kind of mesh together, but definitely a major for students that are really interested in kind of tackling issues in different ways. And so. Watershed Sciences. Next, watershed basically meaning the flow of a water system. So for us here in Colorado we get all of our.

Water from mountain snowpack, so meaning all of the snow from the mountains melts right back into all of our bodies of water in Colorado.

So watershed science. Basically the study of the health, and so students might look at kind of looking into the more civil engineering aspects of understanding water quality and water safety, and then at the same time be kind of good advocates and allies to create change with their different aspects of changing water systems and water quality and providing more water as a resource to different communities. So, watershed Sciences, yeah, definitely that.

Kind of accommodation of looking at the systems and seeing how sustainable they are and then also creating new systems as well.

So moving on, we have fish, wildlife and conservation biology. This is our biology based degree in natural resources, so we have three different concentrations for the major. They don't. The concentrations themselves don't matter too much right away. It only changes kind of year trajectory in a couple classes. So if you want to change your concentration within the major, that's totally fine. Not something you would be set in stone in until you would be graduating, so the concentrations are a wildlife biology, so this is kind of focusing on.

The dimensions and the impact of the habitats in an ecosystem and seeing kind of specific species. How they work. You might be looking at endangered species or species that are kind of more.

Interrupting different habitats and so on, and then you have fisheries and aquatic. This is kind of looking at the different aspects and flow of our ecosystem through the lens of the kind of the connection between wildlife and water, especially fisheries. Fisheries of course, and so that's kind of where we see that is looking at the relationship between water and Wildlife and whether they intersect or not.

Then you have conservation biology. It's kind of looking at all of what I mentioned in the other concentrations, but looks at the multiple impacts in an ecosystem that we see based on either one habitat or more. So it's kind of looking at it kind of from a holistic lens. Kind of more of the big picture aspects of wildlife and animals, so this major in particular is very driven by interest in animals, but if you're interested in animals and have a.

Passion for studying animals. I would argue that you can study them in every major that we have. It just might look different in the context of studying. Those animals would look different.

So next we have foursome, rangeland stewardship. So we have three different majors for this. One is forest and Rangeland Stewardship. Restoration, Ecology and natural resource management for us from Angel Land stewardship. I'll start with. First is has five different concentrations and it's focusing in either forestry. So anything up in the trees right? That could be wildlife trees themselves. Even sometimes the air quality as well as even sometimes soil science just because it's needed for kind of baby. Bringing everything from the ground up right?

And so then you have also rangeland ecology and so rangeland ecology is basically understanding everything on the ground. Whether that's wildlife, vegetation, soil, and even also some implementation of trees, of course, so you can choose different concentrations based on your interests. I know for example, Forest Fire Science is definitely up there and popular, especially considering how many fires that have been all the fires that are happening in the West portion of Colorado. We're pretty close to them in Fort Collins here, being kind of more.

North, I'm in definitely pretty close to the mountains, so definitely something that we are monitoring as the campus as well as even in our mountain campus. And so this is definitely you. See the impacts of what's needed in terms of like filling a kind of natural colon quote, natural resource need. And so I think this concentration in particular is just kind of top of mind for folks. I would also say restoration ecology as well. Restoration ecology is basically kind of Understanding Forestry.

And but also looking at it and the lens instead of conservation, but more of restoration. So restoring your damage ecosystem is what restoration ecology is all about, and so restoration ecology in this way alot of our restoration ecologists in Fort Collins are monitoring. These fires seem that this is a big impact for us. Whether that's based on the health of our wildlife, health of ourselves as humans, and as well as even the safety of basically different ecosystems, so.

That's a really good major, and it's actually our newest major as of 2018 in the fall, so really great major to get that going and look at different impacts of issues, not just these fires as a one that it draws an example, but we also have, for example, the Australian brush fires. The wildfires in California and then also even like the Flint water crisis, for example. So those are a lot of different ways we see that impact, especially in restoration ecology, and these are kind of.

The folks at solve those problems and those are the students that solve problems of endangered.

Very damaged ecosystems.

But then we have natural resource management and I would say this is kind of a focused degree in terms of looking at kind of encompassing what I mentioned, with Forest, Rangeland Stewardship and restoration ecology. But looking at kind of the management side, whether that's kind of more long policy or kind of business practices and kind of looking at the economics of our degrees so not resource management is a really good degree for students that go. You know what, Jake, I don't. I don't know what I kind of want to start with yet, but natural resource management might be good.

Because I know this is what I tend to recommend is because you get to kind of dip your toe in different aspects of Natural Resources. So you might take some geology classes, some wildlife classes, some watershed. You get to kind of choose your path a little bit and get a mixture of different aspects of our 4th St degree within that and then this is the only degree that requires a minor. Just because you want to really enhance that focus. So here's a couple of minors.

That are listed on this slide. Forestry, Rangeland Ecology, Ecological Restoration and conservation biology. So naming that enforce rangeland stewardship is are actually really important. Department. Not saying that the others aren't this is just where we got our start in 1904. We were the College of Forestry so that's kind of where our legacy is held and we have some really great programs within this Department.

So moving on, we have geosciences so, but geology for for those folks for folks to know, and so we have four different geology concentrations.

The first one is geology. This is basically a broad sense of understanding all of our structures. All of Earth's structures and how they function and work. And then you have environmental geology is understanding, kind of the environmental impacts of those structures. So if you think of like volcanoes, mud slides, even earthquakes are different aspects of Environmental Geology. And then you can think of geophysics is the next concentration as a way to evaluate all the different impacts from environmental geology but.

Understand kind of the nuanced nuances of why that's the case, right? Like why would we have a volcano erupting at the certain time in certain day? Why would there an earthquake be happening in a certain region of the Globe, for example? So kind of understanding the different impacts in our world, and then we have. Hydrogeology is basically a little bit connected to watershed science, but also mixed in a way of.

Understanding all of our structure of the body of water, so it's kind of looking at the impacts the impacts in the connection of our earth structures to also the water that that plays with the measures. And then we have minors are we have a minor is our geology if you're interested as well.

And then we have human dimensions of Natural Resources as our last Department.

We have majors in human dimensions of Natural Resources and natural resource tourism. Human dimensions of Natural Resources. What I argue is what myself and my student embassadors are doing today. We're kind of giving you a little bit of awareness and knowledge around natural resources and Environmental Science and also our earth and so human dimensions of natural resource.

Natural resources majors, I argue, are kind of our conservation leaders are educators and kind of our problem solvers and more of the policy and law so kind of giving more awareness to the public on what issues are happening. That's kind of where a lot of our human dimensions folks work in. It also might be doing like communications and marketing and PR as well. So really good major if you're someone that really wants to tell the story of what has been happening and what has happened.

To folks in different different modes, in the modalities and methods. So then we also have natural resource tourism. We have two concentrations, global tourism and natural resource tourism, so global tourism. I'll go first with that one and say that this is a.

A international sense of understanding the tourism industry. So basically the globe right? And so we look at the tourism industry and seeing different portions of how to do tourism, marketing management and also Land Management. And so this major is really understanding how does the tourism industry function as a business but in potentially Everything Everywhere abroad. So global tourism is the only major.

Only concentration that we have that requires a second language. Just because you have study abroad opportunities, internships that require you to have that second language. So then we also have natural resource tourism. So this is more I would say in a national sense. So US centric degree and so when folks are looking into natural resource tourism, they're looking into the different aspects of our tourism industry and how it flows as a business.

But also how we preserve the health and safety of those that are taking place in in those places. So for example, a natural resource tourism students you tend to do an internship and ski areas in Colorado just because that's where a lot of money is in our tourism industry in Colorado. And also it's kind of where we see a lot of different opportunities for connection with natural resources and internships.

So I know that was a lot for our academic Department. San wanted to give you some insight there and then we have some.

Student resources like academic support, advising and mentoring, diversity, inclusion and health and Wellness, and then so many others as well. Like to say for Health and Wellness, CSU students every semester they get 5 free counseling sessions and so and then. After that's $10 after that. So some really affordable mental health counseling. I know that's definitely a concern during this time and so want to make sure that you are aware of that resource as well.

I won't be moving on to our career Advisor Leanna Biddle. She is amazing not just saying that just 'cause I work with her but she does really give us some really great career resources through the college. And apparently she's a hip hop enthusiast so feel free to ask her about that. But she's really great and she's kind of the responsible one for making sure a lot of our students are being set up for success in terms of Karere and their professional development so.

Really great resource there and feel free to visit our career services website to get more information for those career services as well that we have advising and career exploration job search strategies, resume development and more. And then we have career path handouts for each major which I'm happy to link to once we get into the Q&A and then she also helps secure internships with agents and industry so really great there so I know I've been kind of talking at you for a little bit.

It's actually 25 minutes, so I wanted to kind of do a little more. Something interactive, and I want to hear from you all a little bit, so we're going to do a Warner Recap Quiz just to kind of bring things up to speed and also fill any gaps of when I didn't mention certain resources or information. So just as a heads up, these will be a pole so that we all true or false questions, and I just want you to make take your make your best guess on these.

So the first question is true or false? Warner College has admissions requirements to get into the college, true or false. Warner College has admissions requirements to get into the college.

So give me a second to put up this live pole and then feel free to answer that best gas.

So I'm seeing all of them are false, that is correct, so we don't have admissions requirements to get into the college. As long as you are admitted student through CSU and being accepted to CSU and you declare your major through it through us, you would be a Warner Ram. But if you want to kind of go through the steps of doing that to be a Warner Ram, you declare a major check out. Future students are students. Future students page for Warner College connect with resources for housing and dining, and then check resources for financial aid.

And sign up for orientation.

Next question is true or false? CSU has a campus in the mountains and Warner College. Students take classes up there. True or false. CSU has a campus in the mountains and Warner College students take classes up there trying to give it away with this suggestion here.

Feel free to answer this live poll again.

Great, so yeah, the answer is true, so Warner College students take cloud field courses up there and again in our 220 was is Natural Resources Ecology and measurements is a course that we teach for every student in the college and our most students in the college. Excuse me and then. And that is a four week course for our geology students. They do a geosciences field camp.

So not quite at the mountain campus, but really cool as well.

This is our last true or false question, I promise also true or false. All majors in the college require calculus as a math requirement. True or false. All majors in the college require calculus as a math requirement.

So I'm seeing false.

So that is correct. We have students that are taking calculus for Biological Sciences, so that would be fish, Wildlife Conservation Biology, Ecosystem Science and sustainability. Geology and watershed science. Then we have calculus for management Sciences, which is kind of just a step under and so that would be 4 Strange Land Stewardship, Restoration, Ecology, Natural Resource Management. So all the Forestry Department majors there and then for pre calculus we have the human dimensions of Natural Resources Majors.

So now it is time for our Q&A. If I could have my student ambassadors join me for this Q&A, that would be great.

Hey.

I make.

Hello Hello.

Looks like it's just us again.

Yeah, it's interesting. I see spoke participants, but all the five names.

OK.

Well, I guess there isn't. There's no Q&A again, but let's get that Kelly got to see it again I guess.

Well, we have a counselor on.

Hi Megan.

Hi Megan.

Kelly rates on core.

Kelly, do you wanna ask us a couple questions will just pretend you're participant?

Just for like a couple minutes.

So Kelly asks, what is your favorite part of the mountain campus?

Well, Kelly, I think it's the remoteness. The lack of cell service.

Um, the fact that you're stuck there with the people that you're stuck there with, which can actually be really great because they often turn out to be cool people who want to go up and live and learn in the outdoors and then those bonds form even more quickly because of your.

Disconnection from the Internet and just like.

Connection to nature and connection to each other and that was my favorite part by far.

Well, I only spent one night there, but I like what Elliot had to say and I really liked the ropes course. That was really unique activity.

Yeah, the ropes course is awesome and.

I guess for me, I really enjoy the different hiking spots.

Mommy pass is cool and Cirque Meadows was beautiful.

What do you want more questions from Kelly?

Oh, we got some some folks joining this actually looks like.

And then Kelly asked what is your favorite class you've taken at CSU?

I think the GIS was one of my favorite class is actually. It was really fun to put together Maps and things like that and you got to be creative and play around with symbols and whatnot. I thought I really enjoyed that in the professor was really great for it.

I should have gone because that was my first. But yeah, GIS is such a great skill to have and I really enjoyed like the aesthetics of just producing something. I've kind of learned that it's really.

Rewarding to produce like actual content in one. Not that sometimes will get you through get you through your work. But to elaborate, I'll give another answer which would be my classes that I took through the president's leadership program because I learned a lot about social justice myself identities.

Just like it helps me.

Put some pieces together that are really relevant all the time, but especially just like.

Once you get into college or just like paying attention to the things that are happening happening around you in the world and in the country a little bit more, I've found and learning about it in a classroom at slash outside of the classroom, 'cause we had like some field trips and Whatnot.

Was really beneficial for me.

Awesome, I know y'all mentioned GIS and kind of what it what it was or what it is. Could you just give a little more insight on what JS is and why it's important that we study it?

JS stands for geographic information systems and it's essentially learning how to use the main programs on a computer that allow you to analyze and create Maps.

Compile data, analyze the data and have it all come out in a map form. That can be more of like a pictograph kind of outcome like you can really take any direction you want, and the purpose is often to educate someone else about something that you have information about, and so going through the process of.

Distilling that information, making it digestible for whoever the audiences. Yeah, you have to take all sorts of things into account like the audience is a really great practice. And it also like really helps you cement whatever you're working on in your brain because I'm sure you might have had this experience where you teach someone something and you end up learning like you're like. Get that confidence. You're like, Oh yeah, I really know this now, so that's another cool part of it.

Awesome.

I know we had a couple folks joining this.

Uh.

Feel free to ask us any questions will be here till about. I want to say three 4345.

While we're waiting for any other questions, could you?

Sure, I'll go ahead first. On that one I guess. Well, I knew that I wanted to go in state somewhere and I just thought that CSU was the best choice by far when I visited campus and saw how green it was here and how nice everyone was. And also I knew I wanted to do something in science and CSU hunch. So many cool opportunities to.

Into like look into science majors and things.

An I stumbled across Warner.

On the flip side, I knew I wanted to go out of state, so I'm from boy C. Idaho and.

Colorados along drive but not too far. So I was looking at schools in Colorado. I knew I was passionate about the environment and sustainability and a lot of the pieces in the Mail I was getting. We're talking a lot about those things from CSU, and so I thought I might as well check out a place that already I already know shares some values with me. And when I got to campus, I had a similar experience. The end to Maggie and just.

Yes.

If yeah, I felt very green and alive. People felt friendly walking around. I felt safe and.

I also really loved the town of Fort Collins because, you know, your college student student. But you're also just a human being too, and you get to do other things other than class. Every once in awhile, so living in a town where it's very bike friendly and

what else is just like walkable, very cute to go downtown and they have some community events like the light ceremony. Check it out November 1st. I don't know if it's happening but check it out. Yeah, just all that kind of stuff. It just like made me feel at home and I knew I had to go out of state but I still wanted somewhere that that felt somewhat like home and I found it.

Awesome holy one more question.

What advice would you give to any perspective student about coming to CSU and Warner college?

Well, I have one that's more in just in general, and that's just really challenge yourself and don't be scared to fail. When I came to college, I was interested in a lot of the Warner Majors, but I was a little bit timid about calculus and chemistry and things like that, and I was really just trying to pick an easy major, but it really wouldn't be worth going to college if you should pick an easy major just to get a degree like.

Just push yourself and have confidence in yourself and you'll fail sometimes. But you can always pick yourself back up after that.

CAS Rams fail forward.

Let's see I think that in high school, Ann leading up to high school everything is kind of laid out for you. For most of us, your schedules you have. You know one elective here, one elected there, but a lot of it is just.

Pre decided and so you don't really have to think about why you're doing the things your doing. It's just like what you do. But then when you get to college and you

keep that like mindset of just doing what you're like supposed to do or what you think, everybody else is doing or what you think your parents want you to do, then when you start to like, ask yourself why am I doing this? It's kind of like wait. Why am I doing this? So I would just say think about why you want to go to school. Why do you want to study what you want to study?

And don't lose sight of that. Sounds kind of cheesy, but yeah, if you don't have any like core motivation to come back to you at the end of a really hard day, then what's going to get you to get up and do it again the next day?

Awesome.

So I'm hearing.

Really well said Elliott.

Yeah, that was great, so I'm hearing take risks. Don't be afraid to fail and also kind of find your purpose.

That's awesome.

Cool, well we don't have any participants that are not from the college listening, so I think that will be done for the day. I'm just going to pretend again like we're signing off as if though we just came back from a more legit Q&A. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We hope that you got some great information and resources from us. Thank you Megan Elliott for providing such great insight as student Abbasid yrs, y'all rock. I'm not just saying that 'cause.

I would say it, but I I mean it.

And so again, thank you all, and I feel kind of bad that we didn't have an audience so.

But what can you do?

Will get him next time.

For sure, I agree.

Have a good one, y'all.

See ya have a good rest of your day. Appreciate you all.