My Path to Landscape Design

I always knew I wanted a career revolving around the environment and sustainability, but finding the right path proved to be a winding road.

As a child, I always answered the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with a quick unwavering “I want to be a Marine Biologist!” while most of my peers at age 5 answered with typical kid answers of rockstar, princess, doctor, etc. As I got older, my answer evolved. By the time that I reached high school, I decided that I did not want to be a marine biologist because I realized that marine biologist do a lot of work on the beach or in the ocean and two things that are not at the top of my list of enjoyment: Sand & Boats. So I went back to the drawing board - What did I want to do?

During my high school years, I started watching a lot of TED talks. I was pretty engaged to most talks as long as the speaker had some charisma. But the topics that had my eyes glued to the screen and my brain running rampant ALWAYS involved the environment. The TED talk that I believe that truly started this whole thing is one that discussed affordable student housing in The Netherlands being made from shipping containers. I remember thinking that if we could make housing out of shipping containers, how else could we make more sustainable swaps that would benefit the natural and man-made environment?

The possibilities were truly endless.

I went down so many rabbit holes researching green architecture, zero-waste swaps for personal care items, renewable energy, plastic alternatives made from seaweed. If it was a major headline on my niche side of the internet, then you can guarantee that I looked into it. I was actually obsessed.

By the time it came time to pick a direction of study so I could start narrowing down my options for college, I knew that I wanted to work in design. However, I had no idea how I was ever going to niche down enough to do exactly what I wanted. I ended up changing my major several times.

I started out as a chemical engineering major because I thought that I wanted to develop sustainable construction materials. Turns out I did not enjoy college level chemistry and it was not on the same level of enjoyment as high school chemistry.

I tried civil engineering with a focus in environmental and architectural engineering. While this was closer to the vision, it still did not feel right. After a couple of semesters, I realized that I COULD be an engineer if I wanted to. I WAS capable. However, my heart was not in it. I really wanted to do design work but I was not really interested in doing all of the math to make my designs a reality.

We made it!!!

I took a lot of art classes while I was in the weeds of engineering classes. I realized that I looked forward to these classes more than anything else all week. Truly nothing could compare. I was in touch with my creativity. I was able to create something from nothing. I was able to lose myself in my work. To me there was nothing like putting a pencil to paper and letting my creative mind take over. I soon started chasing the high of creating and designing in everything that I did.

Which lead me to my next path.

One of my early landscape drawings in College.

On my journey, I decided WAY WAY too late that I wanted to be an architect. I realized that the only paths towards being an architect included either: a) transferring schools or b) getting a masters degree and I truthfully wanted to do neither. So I decided to check out New College. New college is a program where you can customize your own degree plan. It sounds phony but I was able to create my own interdisciplinary curriculum. I took classes offered at my own university that closely modeled a bachelor’s of architecture at universities that offered it. That way whenever I decided that I was ready to conquer grad school, majority of my credits would transfer and I wouldn’t have to do the full three year program.

I designed my own degree program, Environmental Design and GIS, at the University of Alabama. I figured environmental design set me up pretty well for landscape architecture and GIS was a good early career opportunity if I decided that I did not want to go to school immediately after graduating with my bachelor’s. My degree program was full of art, engineering, psychology, business, environmental science, and geography classes. I even got to travel abroad in Ecuador to become certified in bamboo construction (the recap deserves it’s own blog post, so more on that later). I truly was thriving because I was getting the opportunity to pull knowledge from several different disciplines to become an expert in one. Ultimately, it was a good plan ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but it did not account for all my plans to be derailed by: 1) COVID-19 and 2) meeting my now husband

A glimpse of my study abroad trip to Ecuador!

COVID-19 created a world of uncertainty in its wake. I do not know anyone who truly believes that the world is the same after the effects of the pandemic. At the peak of the pandemic, I was a senior in college who some of the biggest internships of my college career. That in itself was a huge turning point. However, I was also struggling with severe depression and anxiety disorder. I was on and off medications. I was felt lost and I was feeling severely burnt out. I realized that it probably was not a healthy decision to do grad school right after I graduated with my bachelor’s.

I bet your wondering how meeting my husband changed my plans. We met pre-covid. We were quick to realize that we were in it for the long haul and decided that we would journey together on our ventures after college. We decided that we would both look for work in the same cities and whoever landed a job first is the city that we would move to following graduation. Of course, COVID had the job force all whacky. We were both applying to jobs endlessly and it was incredibly discouraging. Needless to say, emerging from college into the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, my professional journey took unexpected turns.

My first job out of college was at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. I had somehow landed a job working in a control room as a Ground Data Operations Controller for the International Space Station. It was a really sweet gig but I was working 10pm - 7 am, which in turn was not as sweet. The thing about working at 3am is that there is no one to talk you down from spiraling about your future. I found myself often looking at grad programs just trying to find one that aligned with where I wanted to be in life. I ended up finding a new job in finance. I’m not sure how I went from aerospace to finance but I did ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I mainly took the job because the company operated at normal human hours and I felt like I would feel better about my outlook on life if I existed outside of the darkeness.

International Space Station Payload Operations Center - Site of my first job outside of college!

But I still found myself feeling unfulfilled.

I came across Daryl from Yardfarmer. If you haven’t seen Daryl’s content, I would highly recommend checking her out! Daryl left her corporate job and started her own landscape design business. She did not even have a college degree in something similar but she was living my dream. So I started paying a lot of attention when she would tell her story. Through Daryl, I learned of the Professional Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) through Oregon State University.

I enrolled and the rest is history. For one of the first times, I was among like-minded people who were passionate about the same things as me. I felt like I finally had a group that I could be nerdy about the interactions between the natural and the man-made world and how we could make a difference by implementing small changes on a personal level.

I can say that after finishing my PDC and starting my own business, I finally feel content and like I’m on the right path to get where I’m going. The path to being a landscape designer has taught me a lot about myself and I’m so overjoyed to be here.

Officially certified!!

If you’ve read this far, thank you for being here. If you also feel lost and like life has thrown a million curve balls at you, don’t give up. Be confident in your abilities, stay strong in your dreams, and keep fighting for what you want.

You are on your way to something great.