Cameron Piper

Heyo! I'm Cameron, a prospective grad student with 5+ years of field experience in avian & ungulate ecology,tracking tech & envi ed. I'm looking for leads on MSc/PhD ops to study spacial/pop/behavioral ecology & conbio. Please RT or send tips on the grad search process. Thanks!

@AndyJBoyce Oof welcome to the not so fun club. I did the same thing in high school. PT will at times be your best friend and your worst enemy. Be patient with your progress and kind to your body. If you can, get an icing machine! That thing works magic and makes daily icing so much easier!

wow it’s so nice outside right now, a couple thousand of you should like go on a hike or something

@mlstantial Thanks Michelle!!

Won’t someone “take a chance” on someone with 6yr experience or let me into grad school? Now back to filling out what feels like 100 more applications…

I used to think not getting the final job offer would get easier over the years in wildlife seasonal work, but continually hearing “you were great but we went w/someone who has more experience” is hurting more now. I can’t gain more experience unless you give me a chance!! 😵‍💫

A big congratulations to Emma Buckardt, the newest Biology MS graduate at @pittstate! Funded by @TheKDWP, her thesis research focused on amphibian occupancy and diversity in the mined lands of southeast Kansas. So proud of her! Stay tuned for her four upcoming publications!

The age old wildlife seasonal job struggle: do you accept a desk job your not ecstatic about to get through fall and winter, or cross your fingers one of your 100 or so other applications actually gets back to you…😥

@HightowerJn Mac and cheese with tuna and green chilis!

Stop gaslighting yourself into the narrative you’re lazy when you’re really burnt-out and exhausted AF from faking being well.

@AndyJBoyce @FedEx I preferred when they just refused to deliver things last year to this

@ejjamis That’s so cool! Congrats!! I’ll be sure to keep an eye out and introduce myself!

@cap1096 I unfortunately can’t be there, but my poster will! A co-author/mentor, David with NPS, will be presenting it. He’s great and you should definitely say hi 😊 He does a lot of collaboration with MSU.

Any tips for networking at a conference as a prospective grad student? I’m going to a Yellowstone Science conference for my job but am also hoping to use it as an opportunity to help in the grad search process. Networking is very intimidating 😬 and I gotta put my brave face on!

@BrennaJCassidy Amazing! I would love that thank you!

@TrevorABranch I would have loved to learn more about how to know what quantitative analysis you should do to answer certain questions (or when you don’t know, how do you find out). I could apply stats on assignments but moving to creating my own research, I’m clueless!

Folks who are in grad school or working in ecological science, what quantitative skills do you wish had been offered in undergrad? (e.g. coding, t-tests, regression, random forests, resampling analysis, etc.)

@jameslywildlife @TrevorABranch Preach!!! Also would have preferred to use R instead of Program MARK or PRESENCE! Could have saved headache hours on my independent research.

@TrevorABranch Definitely R. Both stats classes I took in undergrad used minitab and never have I EVER seen it used outside of those classes

@Dreelin4birds Good luck!!

@MarkyMutchler Same! I’ve considered applying but now am freaked out about reviewers!

Feeling anxious yet inspired today by all the GRFP announcements! I didn’t even apply, but I had to go on a lil bird walk to ease my mind from some of those reviewer comments I’ve seen 😵‍💫 (Digibinned Yellow-rump making the day a bit brighter!)

Dear future supervisor/advisor/PI be who you needed when you were a PhD student #phdlife #phdchat @PhDVoice

I did not win an NSF GRFP. I want to share this particular review; I'm not sure what to say about it.

@corvidresearch Wow!! Your underwater photography is so good! When I was working on Rota I could never fully capture how beautiful the reefs were!!

Ahhhhh, I saw the most beautiful and curious white-tip reef shark! 📍Tinian