After receiving her B.A. from Washington University, Elena worked as an educator in a nature museum in Chicago. But she always knew she’d go back for a graduate degree: “Education is highly prized in my family.” She was impressed with the Nicholas School’s professional degree program because it offered more career choices than just scientific research and because of the ability to take courses in departments other than the Nicholas School and at Universities other than Duke. “It gives you more bang for your buck,” she says.

Summer 2007 update:

Still with the National Park Service, Elena happily reached her two-year anniversary there this summer.  However, currently she is doing her job from the Northeast (NE) Regional Office located in Philadelphia, where she moved to be closer to her fiancé, Kevin McPeak, a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering.  She and Kevin will wed this September.  Congratulations Elena!

At the NE Regional Office, Elena continues her management analyst role as part of the business management group.  “Summer is my busiest season,” she says, but she is getting excited about two upcoming projects she will start in the fall. 

The first is for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Interpretation and Education Division.  She will be assessing visitor center operations and looking at ways to improve its environmental education exhibit space, how to convey environmental messages, and ways to reach a broader public, more specifically special-needs persons (sight and hearing impaired).  The lakeshore is considered a natural resource-based park with 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline that contains four National Natural Landmarks and one National Historical Landmark within its boundaries.

The second project is for the NE Region’s Interpretation and Education Division.  Here she will be looking at some basic education and interpretation standards and how to maintain those standards within tight federal budgets.   “The goal,” Elena says “is to determine how to make the best possible use of all funds and to learn what our core educational requirements are in order to meet visitor educational needs.”

Elena reports that the Park Service continues to recruit highly qualified Nicholas School graduates to fill its job positions.  For example, this summer two graduates were hired to work at Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas and Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia.  Within her team, recent grad Chris Clatterback, MEM ’07 was hired to work and Elena herself will be training him.  She is really enjoying working for the Park Service, an organization that spans the entire country from Florida to Alaska and likes to think of it as one big family.

Hindsight: 

To Elena, she is finding that Nicholas School courses she’d taken in conflict resolution and decision management are really helping her to manage people in her job.  She says that “working within the Federal Government these are important topics to be trained in.”  Also, for prospective students, she has said it before and emphasizes again the importance of building a good network among faculty and colleagues that will be invaluable once you are out there working.  “Regularly, I make calls to fellow Nicholas School alums who are working in D.C. and ask for assistance with understanding policy or other issues.”  People really need to think about that, she says.  Another important point to consider, regardless of whether or not you plan to go into a field-based career, you should take advantage of the tool/skill-based courses, like GIS and Forest Field Skills, “Not only can they be used in your career but they also give you a better understanding of what the people you are managing do,” says Elena.

Elena Arensman has just moved to Washington, D.C. to begin work as a management analyst for the National Park Service, supervising interns who are developing business plans for national park sites. Although she is just a few weeks into her job, she has a very good idea of what it entails, because she was recently one of those interns! In summer 2004, Elena worked as a consultant for eleven weeks at Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway in Wisconsin. With another intern—an MBA student from University of Virginia—she evaluated the park’s history of funding and expenditures and identified strategies Saint Croix NSR could use to improve its spending power, such as establishing a park friends group and creating a Park Trust.

The internship gave Elena a good idea that she’d like to continue working for the government sector, and when a permanent job opened in the National Park Service, she was invited to apply. Now she will not only supervise summer consultants but also help to decide which parks are chosen for the business plan process each year.

After receiving her B.A. from Washington University, Elena worked as an educator in a nature museum in Chicago. But she always knew she’d go back for a graduate degree: “Education is highly prized in my family.” She was impressed with the Nicholas School’s professional degree program because it offered more career choices than just scientific research and because of the ability to take courses in departments other than the Nicholas School and at Universities other than Duke. “It gives you more bang for your buck,” she says.

And Elena took advantage of those outside opportunities. Her focus at Duke was on land protection and planning, and at the suggestion of advisor Dean Urban, she took several classes at the University of North Carolina’s Department of City and Regional Planning. These courses complemented her natural sciences coursework at the Nicholas School and introduced her to students who were immersed in preparing for planning careers—a future network. A first-year internship with the City/County Planning Department in Durham allowed her to see the inner workings of a planning office.

Those planning experiences will be particularly valuable if her career unfolds as she expects. She would like to eventually work for a national park that's on an urban fringe, where she can focus on solving the potential threats development poses to the resources and natural beauty of the park.

At Duke, she was treasurer of the student group FOREM and president of the Environmental Internship Fund, positions that introduced her to a broad variety of fellow students and Nicholas School staff and that added credentials to her resume. “If you’re looking for a job as an analyst,” Elena says, “it looks good that you’ve dealt with money and managed accounts, even on a small scale.”

Elena says, “I wasn't just at the Nicholas School two years and then gone. I am still using professors and fellow students as resources. A group of Nicholas School graduates here in D.C. get together for suppers every month or so. And in a few months, when I’m ready to advertise next year’s internships, I will be in touch with the Career Services office.”

To view the video, choose from the formats listed after each caption:

1. Elena Arensman talks about how the Nicholas School integrates social and natural sciences.
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2. Elena talks about the source of her environmental stewardship.
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3. She talks about the importance of student internships and her work with EIF (the Environmental Internship Fund).
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4. She talks about her summer internship and the job it led to with the National Park Service.
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5. Elena shares her ideas of how business planting contributes to conservation efforts.
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6. Elena talks about her "eye-opening" trip to Singapore.
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7. She discusses how her learning experiences at the Nicholas School extend beyond the classroom.
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8. She talks about life after graduation.
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9. Elena has some advice for new students.
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