Some of the 760 college students from the 54 schools attending PLANET’s 31st Annual Student Career Days in East Lansing, Mich., found happiness in the green industry after discovering their first career of choice to be less than desirable.
One of them, Heather Devoe, who lives just outside New York City, was an early childhood education major. “It was a true passion at first, and I really loved it,” Devoe says. “But every year, it became harder and harder.”
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The senior at University of New York (SUNY) at Cobleskill, who graduates in May, soon found the field depressing and working at childcare facilities in the inner-city sapped her desire to continue. “I would see kids at day care at 6 a.m. and stay there until night and you’d know they’d gotten up at 5 a.m. It just killed me,” she says. “My eyes were opened by landscaping.” She decided to major in plant science.
Devoe credits a professor with introducing her to the green industry, but laughs when she recalls that her fiancée is enrolled in the university’s plant nursery program. The green industry was around her the whole time. “It never donned on me that this was something I could do for a living,” Devoe says.
She’s earned an internship at Joyce Landscaping in Marstons Mills, Mass., on Cape Cod. Her professor has vacationed at Cape Cod for years and introduced her to Joyce Landscaping, where she’ll be the company’s first intern.
For Mason Shaffer, a junior at Brigham Young University – Idaho, interest in landscaping came early in life. “It was kind of a hobby,” Shaffer says. But after he decided to major in civil engineering, he soon switched to landscape design. “Civil engineering just wasn’t fulfilling to me at all,” he says.
Both Shaffer and fellow student and friend Eric Ball scored internships this summer at Bob Jackson Landscapes in Owings Mills, Md. Ball says he likes to create. “I like to see how you can transform things,” he says. “I like to see how you can start with one thing and use your creativity to change it into something incredible.”
The internships emerged after Bob Jackson Landscapes traveled to Brigham Young University – Idaho to recruit students.
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Megan Roberts, senior and teacher’s assistant at BYU, graduates in April and will be working for a landscape designer. She began her college career as a nursing student, but lost her zeal for it.
“It was 12 hours a day indoors and not really my thing,” Roberts says. She’s a biker and climber who thoroughly enjoys the outdoors.
Scott Harvey, professor at Hawkeye Community College, Waterloo, Iowa, brought eight students to Student Career Days.
What are students finding, according to Harvey? “That the industry is much wider than they ever could have imagined. They’re getting an eyeful,” he says. “They’re amazed at the number of students from around the country.”
Students enrolled in Hawkeye’s program work on landscaping projects and have raised money for the trip. “What an opportunity for a freshman,” Harvey says. “We pay for the hotels, travel. They have to pay very little out of pocket.”
Students are required to work at least 30 hours on landscape projects to be eligible to travel to the event.
