Stephanie Guyotte,UR-Tree Hugger for Life...or as Long as There are Trees

Me in a Tree

As a child it was not my dream to be an Environmental Scientist but instead a Veterinarian because I just loved every animal and wanted to safe them all. Then when I came to the realization that I would have to preform surgeries and put animals down that dream did not look so appealing any longer but my love for animals has not wavered. Growing up I was lucky enough to have the freedom to be able to explore the vast wilderness of my own backyard, with boulders to scale, streams to hop, rivers to ride, hills to roll down, and trees to climb I was a very curious kid. I remember asking my father how did all those boulders get in our back yard, to which he replied I don't know look it up in the Encyclopedia, so I did. After learning that those very boulders where left behind by glacier movement thousands of years ago I just had even more questions. I have always had respect for nature and all that it supplies me with be it the basic necessities for life or something more like a secrete hideaway or peaceful escapes or views that makes you feel smaller than an ant, but I never thought about turning that into a career.


This Beautiful Jacaranda down the road from my house was lost
in the last hurricane

     About four years ago I was awoken to the sound of a chain saw which was not too uncommon in my neighborhood so I did not think too much about it, but then I walk out my door and the tree guys are cutting down this massive oak tree in the middle of my front yard. I walk up to them and asked with some choice words what they where doing cutting down the tree. He said it got hit by lighting and died so they had to cut it down so it did not fall into the house, you don't want the tree to fall into your house do you? I then told him that this tree was here long before the house and if the tree fell on the house it would be the houses problem and walked away all huffy and puffy like. My aunt looked at the trees guys and then at me and back at the tree guys and said you will have to excuse my niece she's a tree hugger. It was right then that I decided I needed to do something with my passion for the environment and started down this path towards becoming an Environmental scientist.
      Narrowing down just one field of study for me is a difficult choice, after all there are seals to save, oceans to clean, ozone to repair, glaciers to cool, and trees to hug who can just pick one? I do really like geology so I might do something with fracking seeing as we are in Florida and this is a important issue for the area.