Hi everyone. I’m currently going into my freshman year at UC Davis, enrolled as a nutrition science major. I know this isn’t anything uncommon, but I’m already super conflicted about my major and what I’d like to do as a career. I was enamored with the idea of working professionally with food and keeping people healthy, but ultimately research about the career options made me think that I might enjoy healthy eating more as a hobby and not a career.
I’ve done a ton of research over the summer into different careers and majors in a variety of food/environmental/agricultural fields, looking into things like ecology, environmental toxicology, etc. There are plenty of interesting majors within the environmental college I was admitted into, and I’m fairly certain I’d like to remain within this realm. I know that I’ll probably start to work things out when I start taking more classes and getting my feet wet, but I was just curious if anyone had any input into some interesting opportunities within these fields. Specifically, nutrition, environmental science, wildlife biology, ecology, etc.
I’m definitely into pursuing graduate school which seems like a necessity to land competitive jobs in some of the areas I’ve looked into. I am very aware that these are not high paying careers, which I have come to terms with as long as the work if fulfilling and I’m not crammed in an office 100% of the time. Both of my parents dove headfirst into engineering without really knowing they wanted to do that, and have not had very high job satisfaction, so I’ve seen firsthand what that is like. My main worry is more job availability, as I’m afraid in some of these fields it will be difficult to reach a point of stability to eventually support a family.
If you read this all, thanks so much. I’d appreciate any insight, especially from someone majoring or with experience with any potential careers related to these interests. 