[Column] College Essay One

For years, working to help the environment has been a part of my life. The best example is my mom, who will carry around a soda can all day until she located a recycling bin. It has almost become second nature for me to preach environmental conservation, especially starting with environmental science this year. The simple fact that the Oakland Zoo in Oakland, California combined that and my love animals was perfect. Now, I have been volunteering at the Oakland Zoo Camp for 2-3 weeks each summer for the past four years. Every year, every week I go back, I am just as fascinated with the facts about animals and figures of environmental conservation as the kids I help out are. The Zoo and their words on conservation of not only the environment but the animals as well have heavily inspired me to want to be a part of that movement someday.

And not only has the zoo taught me the logistics of conservation, but other places as well. More and more as I have gotten older, normal family homes, my schools, restaurants, Alameda (my home town) in general, have adapted environmentally friendly ways of living with proper recycling and compost. I find this an accomplishment considering when I travel to different states, the environment concern seems lower than what I have grown up with.

Although being a teen assistant at this particular summer camp mostly involved me helping out with younger children for the benefit of the main teacher, there were still many behind the scenes activities that I got to participate in. One time that stands out most amongst the rest was a year ago when I got the privilege of feeding the giraffes. The Oakland Zoo is very private and does not give basic daily visitors the chance to pay to do things like this, so the opportunity was fantastic. The simple interaction between the animals and me really stood out to me and made me realize that maybe this is something that I might really want to do.

When I was in Kindergarten, I was always asked the basic question: “What do you want to be when you grow up, Anna?” Of course the answer changed every single time. One year, I wanted to be a doctor, then a nurse, then a singer or an actor. The answer fluxuated so frequently and nothing seemed to stick. But each year I signed up for the volunteering in the summer and set foot in the zoo again, it became extremely evident that working with animals and the conservation of the earth was the one thing I always came back to wanted to do in the future. I have spent over 300 hours of volunteered time there, and I’m already anxious to return.