On the 27th of March we got to listen to Maggie Muurmans and all her expertise in the conservation field. She gave the lecture at Van Hall Larenstein in Velp.

Maggie Muurmans won the Future For Nature Award in 2009 for her work on sea turtle conservation in Indonesia. During this lecture, she shared with us her conservation journey, and how we too could stay true to our own goals in life. Maggie has had many different interests and jobs throughout her career, from senior Mammal keeper to co-founding her own non-profit-organisation Ocean Connect. Comparing her own jobs to the Ikigai model, she showed us how we could balance our passion, mission, vison and profession. She told us to not be afraid to chase our dream jobs and that there is no shame if our interest changes over the years. 

After this she talked more about what our career could look like by discussing her own personal experiences. As head of her own non-profit, when hiring new staff or interns, the first thing she looks at on a CV is if people have volunteering experience. Being a volunteer shows you have real passion for what you do, and you learn vital skills. Another thing Maggie finds important when hiring is if you have good people skills, since for most conservation jobs you will interact with may different people and cultures. She also urged us to contact her if we ever wanted to be an intern and help in her ongoing seagrass, koala or sea slug projects.

Maggie Muurmans ended her lecture with a video of the interns and the amazing volunteers who helped out with the mapping and identification of sea slugs. We finished the session with a Q&A, and then we thanked Maggie for her time. It is safe to say that we all learned a lot for our future careers!