Choosing a career at eighteen can feel overwhelming. There are so many options it can be hard to know which path to take. Choosing to change your career in your late twenties comes with a different set of challenges. How will I retrain alongside my current job? Is it sensible to try and start again when there’s rent to pay? The options can feel few and far between.

For me those limitations made changing career feel almost impossible. It was made even more challenging by the fact that I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to do, only that I wanted my future career to be in the environmental sector.

It was in one of my many searches for part-time study that I spotted the Grow Leader course, hosted at Grow Wilder, and after a bit of research I knew it would be the perfect way to get started in a new career.

The course ran one day a week for eight weeks which meant I could easily fit it alongside my full-time job using annual leave. It was also broad enough to give me an overview of potential new careers. It covered lots of different topics, from soil health to therapeutic horticulture, volunteer management to ecology. Every week I felt more inspired, and my confidence grew. I felt certain that a career in the environmental sector was the right decision.

As well as learning from expert tutors in the classroom, we had the opportunity to get outside and gain practical hands-on experience. We helped the growers at Grow Wilder to plant out crops that would go on to feed the local community and helped to maintain habitats for wildlife. But my favourite new skill was soil analysis. We learnt how to easily find out what type of soil you were working with and how that impacts what you can grow.

Another highlight for me was leaning more nature friendly ways to garden and grow food. We learnt about companion planting, how to compost and the no dig method. For someone who’d never done much gardening there was so much to learn! We also learnt how to properly build and maintain bee hotels – something which I’m sure the solitary bees in my garden appreciate!

The Grow Leader course gave me the confidence to take my first step and make the switch into the environmental sector. Since taking the course I have worked for Butterfly Conservation and Avon Wildlife Trust! Jobs I wouldn’t have felt confident enough to apply for without the knowledge and confidence I gained from Grow Leader.  

My new practical skills have been put to good use as well. I have taken on an allotment and grow a lot of my own food. I’m also able to use the knowledge I gained to help others, particularly to become more nature friendly in their growing, working with wildlife rather than against it.