STUDENT Perspectives
Nicole Prescott ’13 Plans Career in as Federal Wildlife Officer Some people come to their life’s calling from the road less travelled. Nicole Prescott ’13, a non-traditional student from Farmingdale, Maine, is one of these individuals. A conservation law enforcement major with an enviable array of training and professional work experience to her credit as she finishes her final semester, Prescott spent her first five years after high school working for Winthrop Ambulance Service in Winthrop, Maine. The instructor of her scuba class in 2006 was a Maine State game warden. “I actually ended up helping with his classes and did research on my own about being a game warden,” Prescott said. As a Unity student, Prescott has distinguished herself as among the very best. She participated in the Student Career Experience Program (SCEP), under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Beginning the program in the summer
of 2010, Prescott first worked in Kansas at the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, continued during the summer of 2011 at the Audubon Wetlands Management District in North Dakota, and most recently worked in Utah during the summer of 2012 at the Bear River
Migratory Bird Refuge. “I haven’t officially heard yet but the plan is when I graduate that I will be converted from a student position in the SCEP to a full-time federal game warden,” Prescott said.
Sarah Bicknell ’13 Finds Her Passion in the Soil By Sara Trunzo ’08 During an AmeriCorps apprenticeship at The Youth Garden Project in Moab, Utah, Sarah Bicknell ’13 discovered that “putting [her] hands into the soil was therapeutic.” Bicknell, a Chelmsford, Massachusetts native, is deliberately intertwining her interests in growing food and connecting to community as she pursues a degree in sustainable agriculture. As part of her studies, Bicknell completed an internship with the Farm Viability branch of Maine Farmland Trust. In this position, she worked closely with farmers to coordinate a multi-farm CSA (community supported agriculture) that helps make locally
grown products accessible to low-income consumers. “This area is the place to study food systems, we’re surrounded by foodies and farms,” said Bicknell, who now calls an off-the-grid homestead in Freedom her home. Outside of class, she is working to augment her food preservation skills, create a permaculture landscape, and get involved with town governance. Bicknell says the experiential approach at Unity fits her personal learning style. “I look at the world and ask, ‘What needs to happen?’ Then I see how my passion can fit those needs.”
UNITY SPRING 2013
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