Sam Low stands in awe of his ancestors — and he isn’t alone. “They possessed ships that were capable of traveling the world,” says Low, an anthropologist, filmmaker, photographer, and lifelong sailor.

Everyone wants a job that is personally satisfying and improves the world. Few career paths offer as many different ways to achieve both objectives as geoscience.

Like many other Native students, Kenny Swift Bird was motivated to go to college. He had some great teachers at the high school in his small Nebraska hometown of Chadron, less than an hour’s drive from his Oglala Lakota Tribe’s Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. When he took statistics, calculus, and chemistry, his teachers helped him discover both his aptitude for STEM and how much he enjoys it.

Elsie DuBray turns 18 on the Fourth of July. She’s headed for Stanford University after graduating last spring from Timber Lake High School in Timber Lake, S.D., where she sang in the choir, played flute in the band, participated in the One-Act Play and Oral Interpretation programs, served as student council president, played volleyball, and volunteered with the Cheyenne River Youth Project. 

Growing up on ancestral lands next to Yosemite National Park, Irene Vasquez spent countless hours hiking, swimming, biking, and attending cultural ceremonies. Over the years, she’s seen the ecological deterioration of the land that she calls home. This deterioration pushed Vasquez to realize a dream: to help influence management of public lands with an Indigenous perspective.

Whether you’re a pre-college student or a post-doc, you’re not traveling solo. There are many people ready to offer advice, academic help, even tips on finding money for school. In the case of some of these people — who actually work for your school — their job is to get you whatever help you need.