My name is Daniel Shosky. I am currently eighteen years soon to be nineteen. I grew up in Denver, Colorado, however, I moved to Poultney, Vermont in August of 2009. My upbringing was based around a lot of outdoor activities such as: hiking, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, and numerous excursions to the backcountry. I climbed my first fourteen-thousand foot mountain at age eight. From my time living in Colorado, I was able to hike 20 peaks above 13,000 feet. It was from all this exposure that I learned what I wanted to do which is to work in the outdoors. During the summer of 2007, I started working with the Student Conservation Association when I served on my first National Conservation Crew which was located on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The following two summers I would later go on to serve on two more crews in their respective locations: Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness within the Payette National Forest, and Yosemite National Park. Along the way, I slowly started to realize that my life revolved around the environment humans inhabit.
As my career with SCA progressed, I realized my dream was to someday study the natural environment and society. I am currently a student at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont where I am double majoring: Environmental Studies (environmental education and interpretation) and Sociology/Anthropology. My life’s dream is to become an environmental educator to share the story of environmental destruction, and how humans could stop this. In accordance to the educational mission of Green Mountain which states “ Through a wide range of liberal arts and career-focused majors, the college fosters the ideals of environmental responsibility, public service, global understanding, and lifelong intellectual, physical, and spiritual development” (greenmtn.edu). I decided to return one final time to the Student Conservation Association to live my dream. I am looking forward to serving on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest Crew this summer to begin my journey of becoming an environmental educator, and living in the great outdoors for a summer.
