Alumnus testimonial
Claudia - Landscape Officer
Claudia studied biology at La Molina Agrarian University in Perú. Afterwards, she worked at a Conservation Data Centre where every task was a black box with a new challenging question and she had no idea of how to solve it. She realised she was ready for a master’s Forest and Nature Conservation in Wageningen. After that she managed to get a job as landscape officer at WWF-Peru.
I must admit I was a bit of a weird student. Most European students enrol on a master’s immediately after the bachelor; but I arrived with some empirical knowledge.
Why did you decide to study Forest and Nature Conservation?
“I immediately became interested in the master’s Forest and Nature conservation because it strings together three important issues to work effectively in conservation: Ecology, Management and Policy. With my work experience I already knew that a mixture of management and ecology was what I was looking for.”
Is it an advantage that you already had work experience before starting the master’s?
“Every course I went through consisted for almost 70% of new knowledge and the rest was the theoretical background which I could relate to something I had already done. The bad part of this was finding myself telling: I did this before! If I had known this before I could have done it better! The good part is that based on my previous experience I started to dream about the “what if” scenarios. Some courses helped me to figure out those scenarios.”
Could you tell us something about your current job?
“When I came back to Peru I had two ideas in mind: I definitely like research and I will keep cycling like I did in the Netherlands. Therefore, I go by bike to my office at WWF-Peru where I work as a Landscape Officer in the Climate Change and Conservation Science Unit. At the same time I am looking for funding to carry out my own PhD project proposal which I wrote in Wageningen with my former supervisor. A nice life, isn’t it?”