Finding your tribe...
and what you wanted to be when you grow up
Some people know what they want to be when they grow up. I did not.
At around 6 or 7 years of age, one day in school we had to pick what we wanted to be when we grew up and write about it. I don’t make decisions quickly so obviously I panicked. I thought I might want to be a dancer. “Someone else has already picked that and her mother is a dance teacher”, said my teacher (a nun). “Pick something else”. “A nun?” I suggested, hopefully, my heart a little wounded from being denied my hurried first choice, and with no backup plan. She smiled kindly, “Perhaps you can think of something else, dear…” before wandering off to guide the next girl into her life career trauma.
I didn’t become a nun. But I also didn’t actually ‘become’ any ‘career choice’. I couldn’t decide.
In high school I excelled at botany and biology, so at University my first two years I tried upper division genetics (obviously I failed it), geology, (too many minerals) a new topic called geomorphology (too much math), several anthropology classes (anthropologists were snobs), psychology (too many sorority girls), economics (also nearly failed it), ethnomusicology (not practical; too many drugs needed), various philosophy courses (too ethereal), and even physical education(!!). I kept getting distracted around the edges, and bored with too much detail. Thank goodness for liberal arts colleges in the US that actually encourage you to try different subjects before you commit your final two years to get a degree.
This quotation from the wonderful John Muir sums it best for me:
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” ― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
With nothing quite setting my soul on fire and the chance to work in London for a year, I withdrew from my studies and went off to see the world, at least the world beginning in London, finishing with several months travel beyond.
Over that next year I discovered a subject called Geography that wasn’t very common in the US, but far more more common in the UK and Europe. I found that one of the best Departments in the US was just across the bay from my home, at the University of California at Berkeley, and so eventually I returned to California to finish my degree.
One of the things I loved immediately when I discovered Geography was that we got to learn about many different topics: we didn’t have to decide! We considered geology, botany, anthropology, AND economics: we studied how all those things influenced each other, and expressed themselves through landscapes. It was pure heaven for me and I was so excited to have finally met like-minded thinkers. It was the interconnection between things that we got to focus on, rather than a deep dive into one thing.
According to National Geographic1, “Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth's surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people.”
The Royal Geographical Society definition2 is more sweeping: “Geography is, in the broadest sense, an education for life and for living. Learning through geography – whether gained through formal learning or experientially through travel, fieldwork and expeditions – helps us all to be more socially and environmentally sensitive, better informed, and more responsible as citizens and employees.”
Honestly, it is no wonder I ended up studying Geography, I loved everything about it, and of course that it was about everything.
Berkeley had a small department of undergraduates, and we became a rather loose-knit but enthusiastic group of colleagues. There were a few time-intensive classes we all had to take and through those many hours spent working together, we bonded in a wonderful way.
One of these classes was cartography which of course now has been replaced by the wonders of modelling and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). We had only one assignment where we used a ‘computer’: we filled in punch cards, and signed up for allocated time at the central campus computing lab. Imagine! Now we carry those central labs around with us in our pockets, and detailed maps are available for us anywhere we want, at any time.
Anyway! Most of our cartography hours were spent drawing fiddly lines on vellum paper using expensive drawing pens filled with ink from bottles. We also used sheets of preprinted press-on letters and numbers to label our rivers and streets and of course create the map title and legend. We had to carefully peel the appropriate-sized letters from the sheets and apply them meticulously to our vellum maps. Creating straight lines for the legend, not ripping the fragile letters, and not blotting or smearing the ink. Well, you can imagine the vocabulary in that room after hours.
A few of us had a recent reminiscence on Facebook about those late-night sessions in the Cartography lab. I confess I was one of the ones who was more savvy about knowing in which cupboards the cookies for Departmental Thursday Teas3 were hidden than making sure my lines were straight. That is also why I am not a professor of Geography like several of my classmates who have had distinguished and fascinating careers. (That’s you I’m talking about, Professor Bendix!)
The other big required class that became legendary for great stories and adventures was California Geography, a field-based class that took us adventuring all over the state for a 4 month semester. (Sadly the Alaska Geography course did not also include a field component, although our reading list was pretty wonderful.)
I haven’t kept many of my university notebooks or textbooks, but I have always kept my field notebook from that semester. As well as my handwritten notes from roadside and trailside lectures, I have sketches of identification parts of native plants and assemblages that characterise the various communities of plants across the state.
It includes the short stories we wrote when we were in Gold Rush towns, and poems that would evoke a sense of specific places we visited. Most importantly, I pressed many of the wild herbs and grasses we learned to identify between the pages, and every time I unwrap the rubber band to open the notebook, the smell of high California desert and sagebrush grasslands come pouring into my senses and I am back having the time of my life in one of my favourite places on earth.
The first and longest trip we took was to the East Side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range just east of Yosemite National Park. We camped for 5 days in mid-October when the aspens were turning yellow, the nights were freezing, and the days short. We took advantage of every hour of light, as we were sung awake by our trip leaders at dawn, ate our camp stove breakfast, and off we went in our caravan of five University cars and van.
We were driving long-distances each day from our campground to investigate the fascinating places4 and stories around us:
to Bodie, the abandoned Gold Rush Town;
up Rush Creek to learn about Owens River water diversions by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (see the movie Chinatown for more details);
spending a day hiking around Mono Lake and its distinctive tufa towers and volcanos;
learning about the Owens pupfish and other species around the Owens valley area from the biologist who spent his life studying and saving these species;
and even driving up to the University research station at the top of the White Mountains, at a very high elevation of 4342 m (14,242’).
I look back fondly at joining the geography department because I belonged there from the very first day. As a shy and reserved girl not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up, for some magical reason, once I arrived I felt instant belonging. I knew these people were my tribe. I was a Geographer! I wanted to go back and let my 6 or 7 year old self know that it was ok then not to know what I wanted to be when I grew up: one day I would become a geographer!
After graduation I learned that there were actually no jobs for geographers since no one else except academics in the US knew what a geographer was and what they could do. My joy at knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up was theoretical rather than practical. That, plus a massive recession and a government at the time who decided funding environmental-supporting actions was a waste of resources meant I had to struggle a bit to find work. (One option offered at the career centre was working for a large grocery chain helping them locate their supermarkets.)
Even still, I managed to mostly spend my life doing the kind of work that geographers are pretty good at: making connections between disparate ideas, and helping other people understand the connections between their actions and the landscapes in which they live. I’ve had glimmers of similar experiences of finding my geography tribe at workplaces a couple of times.
Many, many, many years later, I met another geographer, from England as it turns out. He had studied that ‘new’ subject of geomorphology (mentioned earlier) to the point that he was a University lecturer in the subject and had subsequently found his way to the US and was now working for the same company I did. More time passed, and now these two geographers live here in the UK.
We know that being geographers is the perfect choice for people like us who can’t make up their minds. We like to know a little bit about everything, and enjoy finding connections between disparate topics. I also think maybe that is the answer to why we geographers still can’t decide where home should be when we grow up. 🏡 🇬🇧🇺🇸
What about you? I’d love to hear about any of these things (or anything else- you know me: it’s all connected!):
Do you have a tribe? Did you ever?
Did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?
Did you ever change your mind about what you want to do, or pivot in your job choices?
If you studied a topic in higher education, did it help you in your career?
Are you being (or doing) what you wanted to be when you grew up?
Have you grown up? 😄
As always, thanks for reading and making it all the way to the end! Hope to see you here next week!
Sabrina xx
Departmental Teas! How English! Once a month (I think) on Thursday afternoons we had a guest, visiting lecturer or graduate student present a short talk and then we would have tea and cookies/biscuits.
If you ever visit California, these are places that are far from the traditional tourist routes and you will be blessed with landscapes like nowhere else.
What a superb essay.
Firstly I came to understand you a little more and secondly I now have a much better understanding of geography and what it means.
I studied Arts at University. What on earth does that mean, these days? TBH, it fits the image of the studious notaries of the Middle Ages, swanning round Bologna, Paris and Oxford in black robes. But in the 1960-70's?
In those days it meant a bit of English Lit, a bit of history, a bit of geography, a bit of politics, ancient civs. A mish mash of all that is phenomenal in the history of the world and some amazing drop dead gorgeous fashion and music!
We had to choose Majors, didn't we, after our first year, and still not knowing what I wanted to do, I chose history because I've loved it forever. And God knows why, I chose International Politics. Not knowing that everything was beginning to fit together like a fateful little puzzle.
But my ultimate BA fit me for nothing and even then I didn't know what I wanted to do. Do we ever at 17-18? So I did a diploma of librarianship where I learned to be a researcher and I was eventually delivered to the media where, like you meeting your husband through geography, I met mine through TV and radio.
What research and the study of history did do was give me a lifelong love of the Middle Ages which led me to writing fiction. Wierd, isn't it? Did I find my tribe? Yes - indie hist. fict writers, mainstream hist. fict writers and now Substack folk - serendipity I suppose. Don't you think?
Sabrina, What a wonderful essay on geography. I, too, am great at connections but not willing to limit myself to one field. That must be why I ended up as a geography major for most of my undergraduate time. I loved cartography! But could not imagine myself confined to the field as it was then. Oh if I had only seen my later life in IT. As it turned out for my senior thesis I picked a French school of thought and then found that all the research was in French. Yikes! No Google translate back in the dark ages so I struggled through and actually got pretty proficient at reading French. I too found that the career prospects were pretty slim and took a long pause on education. After a five year break I went to finish my degree and found the fastest way to finish was to flip my major and minor, and so I became an economist. Economics is so similar to geography as you describe the study of the interactions of people and their environment. Not as dissimilar as you may think.
You two geographers are dear to may heart and I hope that we see more of each other.
Robbie