Sept 2007
Dream Job Series: Karyn, Outdoor Adventure Guide
Thirty-two year-old Karyn has the job she’s always wanted. She’s a Mentor Field Instructor for Second Nature, a sophisticated wilderness therapy treatment program for teens. At Second Nature, Karyn and her colleagues provide insight, direction and hope to troubled teens and their families. I had a chance to speak with Karyn during the process of writing How’d You Score THAT Gig? and here are some of the highlights from her interview:
Alex: Describe some of the day-to-day activities of your job.
Karyn: I work an 8 day on (24 hours/day), 6 day off schedule with a group of other instructors (usually 3 or 4 total) with a group of approximately 8-12 teenagers. We live in the woods and backpack 3 or 4 days a week. The wilderness is used as a therapeutic intervention for our students who are usually facing some sort of challenge in their lives. We sleep under tarps, hike frequently,
hold therapeutic groups, and work one on one with the students.
Alex: How do you feel about your job and why?
Karyn: I love my job as it gives me a chance to work with kids at a point when they are struggling with their identities and security. It also means I get paid to be out in the woods! Sometimes I get stressed out when we have lots of students or my staff is demanding, but I cannot imagine a job I would rather have.
Alex: How did you get your first paying job in this field? Did you do anything out of the ordinary to break in?
Karyn: My first job in the outdoors was when I was 16 and worked for a Boy Scout camp. My first job as a wilderness therapy instructor was with this company. I started three years ago and worked my way up the levels of the company.
Alex: What in your childhood, adolescence, or college experience prepared you for this career?
Karyn: I grew up participating in Girl Scouts and later in a co-ed division of Boy Scouts. I went camping 10 – 15 weekends a year and several weeks each summer. Any activity in the woods was a favorite hobby. College took me down a completely different path, and in an urban setting I did not get a chance to be outdoors very often. I worked two summers at a Boy Scout camp during college, but it was not until five years after I graduated that I left the city and went to work in New Mexico for the boy scouts for four years. While in college, however, I honed my listening skills, and with a degree in journalism, I gained some general communication skills. The journalism part at least helps with the paperwork I do now!
Alex: What personality traits and skills do you think it takes to be successful in your job?
Karyn: I think it’s important to be
outgoing, a good listener, patient, fun-loving, giving, caring, adventurous, supportive and kind. Actually
many of the people who I work with do not have backgrounds in either wilderness or therapy! I think the profession is pretty open to people of all skill sets and interests. Alex: What challenges have you faced, and how have you managed setbacks in this job?
Karyn: Probably the biggest challenge I have faced is not knowing with happens to our students when they leave our program. It can be emotionally draining to work with the same student for several weeks, and then they leave. I can only hope they don’t return to their negative coping patterns and find a successful aftercare treatment (usually boarding school). We very rarely hear back personally as instructors as to how the kids are doing. Other challenges include routine stuff – I get tired of our staple foods like beans and rice and pasta and oatmeal, and I’ve learned some creative recipes from few ingredients. Finally the weather can be tiresome sometimes – Georgia in the summertime with its heat and bugs is not the most comfortable place for a northern girl to be!
Alex: What's the compensation like for those who are successful in your job? Explain the trajectory once one breaks in.
Karyn: Compensation tends to be on a daily rate – the averages of various companies are something like $90 - $175/ day (working about 200 days/year). Most companies include health care, and mine has a 401K package and quarterly bonuses. A few bonuses – this is not generally seasonal work – most companies are year round.
Because of a fairly high turnover rate, it’s fairly easy to work your way up in the field to become a senior level instructor relatively quickly. Another advantage of the pay is that you are not able to spend any money while you work in the woods, so the smaller dollars go a little farther.
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