The Value of Non-degree Programs for Career Changes (Part 2 of 3)

For those of you who may not have read my last article, I’m enrolled in two non-degree programs to help in my career transition from the technology world to a role in Environmental Conservation in the nonprofit sector. I thought about going back to school for a full master’s degree in a field like Climate Science or Environmental Science, but the funny thing about the global climate crisis is that it doesn’t care whether you believe it’s real or not, or whether anyone believes catastrophic impacts are imminent … it’s here and we have to deal with it now. So, I decided to use what skills and knowledge I have, add some other skills in the short term, and build the rest as I go.

There are many excellent learning and skill-building options besides post-graduate degrees, and I’m enrolled in two:

The University of Connecticut ’s Department of Public Policy’s “Encore Connecticut” program

The Connecticut Forest & Park Association ’s “Master Woodlands Manager” program

Encore, as I’ll refer to it through the rest of this article, is a semester-long program focused on helping for-profit leaders transition into nonprofit leadership roles. It meets every other Saturday for a full day, and once a month on Fridays for a full day on the Hartford UConn campus I love being in person again after having earned my last few certifications from UConn Grad School & MIT remotely. It also has a Fellowship component to the program which requires each of us, as Fellows, to work in our chosen nonprofit field. I look at “Fellows” as a fancy name for highly experienced interns.

MWM, as I’ll refer to it through the rest of this article, is a year-long program that meets both in-person and virtually over the course of a year. We must complete the requisite in-person and virtual classes as well as take a minimum of 6 elective classes over the course of the year.? All the training culminates in our development of a Woodland Survey and Action Plan for a woodland (forested) area that we either own, manage, or are surveying on behalf of another organization. CFPA also offers a 2-year Master Naturalist program that I may apply for when I complete MWM.

The Encore program is a continuation of the education I began with UConn several years ago in the nonprofit sector.? I achieved a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership from UConn Grad School in 2019 which was very beneficial for me to understand the differences in how nonprofit organizations (NPOs) organize and operate when compared to for-profit enterprises. What it did not provide was real-world experience working with an NPO, although I did get permission from The Center for Family Justice , an organization I was volunteering with at the time and am now an officer on their Board of Directors, to use them as a case study for the majority of my papers and projects. That created valuable learning opportunities with the leaders of an organization while writing papers, developing programs, and analyzing financial statements.? That certificate work didn’t get me experience I could put on a resume though, and Encore does.

The Fellowship experience is like a real job (except you don’t get paid) which is why I love it so much! The UConn Encore program lined up about 50 local nonprofit organizations which had projects it needed experienced leaders to develop. Each Fellow must review the Fellowship job descriptions and submit their resume and cover letter (e-mail in this case) to ~3 Fellowship opportunities. Ideally, we pick roles in organizations with missions we’re passionate about.? The interested organizations invited us to interview with them, and if selected, it’s an 8-week job which each Fellow must negotiate in terms of weekly hours and expected deliverables for a satisfactory completion. This is the nonprofit world, so each organization has tons of work and never enough people to do it… and as a result is usually asking for a lot. As former business leaders, we must recognize what can be done in this timeframe, set expectations and deliver. Fellowships should be taken seriously because they are opportunities to put real, referenceable experience on your resume. Some Fellows from prior years have been able to turn their Fellowships into a full-time job offer afterward.

Encore is much more than the Fellowship though. A typical college course is taught by professors, but each Encore session is taught by different NPO business leaders depending on the topic. For our advocacy session (my absolute favorite one of the year so far) where we learned about the ways to work with state and local government to pass legislation that is core to your organization’s mission it was taught by the CEO of a local NPO and a professional lobbyist. The highlight of the day was when Matt Ritter, Speaker of the House of the CT State Legislature came in for an hour of Q&A. He didn’t rush in and rush out, he used every minute of the hour, and at the end when someone suggested he head back to the State House he said, “I think we have time for 1 or 2 more questions, let’s keep going.” Wow! The other sessions have been equally unique and interactive. Often, we are so inquisitive as a class that we need to back off of questions to get through the full session, but the interactive discussion with nonprofit leaders is what we’re here for. This week’s session on grant writing will be led by the CEO of one NPO and the Chief Giving Officer of another. The current and relevant insight these leaders provide from the sector is invaluable!

MWM is a completely different and wonderful experience. Our in-person classes are usually comprised of wandering through the forest talking or having discussions at a state park pavilion before again … wandering through the forest! The virtual classes are often with our esteemed State Foresters from CT DEEP (Department of Energy and Environmental Protection) on topics like map making the old-fashioned way (by hand) or with smartphone apps, investigating property history at your local town office, the benefits of forest management through commercial use of lumber, and the importance of urban forestry. My previous belief was that cutting down trees, no matter what the reason, was bad. In fact, silviculture when done right, results in healthier and more sustainable forests that continue to capture and store carbon from our atmosphere which is a crucial component to solving the climate crisis. We can’t solve this problem simply by stopping our factories and cars from belching carbon into the atmosphere, we must return our ecosystem to its balance by sequestering more of it in the earth itself and carbon gulping plants are the solution!

I expected to have some enlightening moments diving into a world that is so new to me, but one has stood out. My world was rocked when I learned about mycorrhizal networks, which are quite literally a network of trees and understory vegetation all interconnected by the mycelium of fungi (e.g., mushrooms) on the woodland floor. Trees and plants are able to share nutrients and can actually “communicate” through this network based on the chemicals and other resources that they transfer. It may seem like science fiction straight out of Avatar, but plants can signal danger to others when they’re under attack which causes its neighbors to put up a defense against the predator (invasive bacteria, insect, etc.), and older trees have been observed sharing their nutrients and energy deposits with younger ones to help them grow. I heard about the concept years ago and thought it was theory but it’s a fact. What will I learn next to rock my world?!

There are downsides though and MWM has ruined my hiking pace! I used to fly through the forest on my training hikes focused on pace and practicing efficiently navigating rocks and streams at speed. Now I look at the trunk of a tree I’m passing (there’s a lot of them in the forest) and slow down to identify its species by the bark. If I can’t, I stop and look up at the canopy to see leaf structure and twig patterns or look on the ground for fruit (nuts) and seed pods to further identify it. One day I went out for an early morning hike, and less than half a mile into a 12-mile hike plan I just wandered off the trail into the woods and spent the next 2 hours looking at trees and understory vegetation to identify… I never finished my hike but had a great morning aimlessly wandering the forest. :-) I now notice the difference in the stand composition of the forest as I move from oak and hickory on the blue trail’s ridgeline in West Rocks Park to more maple, birch and beech as I move down slope to the red trail on the lowlands. I can appreciate the understory trees like witch-hazel, American hornbeam and of course my all-time favorite sassafras. No matter what I end up doing in the future, forests and streams will never look the same to me again … they are far more wonderous than I ever knew before … and if you know me, I have always marveled at the mountains, waters and forests I hike through!

Career change is hard. It’s stressful, it’s financially challenging, and it’s time consuming, so finding a way that effectively gets you from point a (the decision to change) to point b (the new career) is important. You have a plethora of learning options before you. Research what is available for your field, and that starts with networking. I’ve spent time with many people who have made the same for-profit to nonprofit jump as me and listened to what worked for them which helped point me in new directions. Do NOT be afraid to reach out to people and ask for advice, you’ll be amazed at how willing people you don’t even know are to provide coaching and mentoring.

Use your existing support network too. I can’t even start to describe how important it has been to me to get such amazing support from my friends, coworkers, former coworkers, former customers and business partners along my journey. On those days when progress is hard to come by, reach out to them to inspire you to keep going. You CAN do this, because you WANT to do this.

Peace my friends.

Coming up next… Fellowships, Internships and Volunteering for Career Change (3 of 3)