After a long career in veterinary medicine, Christine Crick-Giltner returned to the classroom to pursue a degree in entomology, which offers a way to reconnect her early curiosity in the natural world with rigorous scientific frameworks. In this article, learn about her experience and lessons learned in re-entering academic life as a nontraditional student. (Photo courtesy of Christine Crick-Giltner)

By Christine Crick-Giltner

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series contributed by the ESA Student Affairs Committee. See other posts by and for entomology students here at Entomology Today.

Returning to formal academic training later in life is rarely linear, comfortable, or efficient. For many nontraditional students, the decision to return to school is driven not by novelty but by unfinished intellectual work. After a long career in veterinary medicine, I returned to the classroom to pursue formal training in entomology. This transition required recalibrating how I learn, identify professionally, and contribute within an academic setting that often assumes a traditional student trajectory. It has also reinforced the value that returning students bring to disciplines that benefit from interdisciplinary perspectives and applied experience.

What Brought Me Back

My interest in biology and the natural world did not begin in a classroom. It began in childhood, shaped by time spent outdoors with my father. Many of my earliest memories are rooted in simple experiences: nature hikes through wooded areas, learning to notice what lived underfoot and overhead, and long summer evenings at Midwestern softball fields. As the sun dropped behind the horizon and games wound down, fireflies rose from the grass, briefly transforming ordinary spaces. Those moments fostered an early attentiveness to living systems, long before I had language for what I was observing.

That curiosity later found a practical outlet in veterinary medicine. Working in animal health allowed me to find deep engagement with physiology, behavior, and problem-solving and provided a long rewarding career. However, over time, my focus expanded beyond individual animals to broader biological systems. Invertebrates, particularly insects and pollinators, became central to my thinking about ecology and environmental change. Returning to academia was not a rejection of my prior career; it was a return to its roots. Formal training in entomology offered a way to reconnect my early curiosity with rigorous scientific frameworks.

Challenges and Realities of Re-Entering Academia

Re-entering academic life as a nontraditional student presents challenges beyond content mastery. Academic reintegration requires adapting to evolving technologies, assessment styles, and classroom dynamics, often while balancing professional and personal responsibilities. Increasingly, this learning occurs through distance education and online modules.

While sometimes framed as a compromise, this mode of training has introduced an unexpected richness. Online coursework allows exposure to multiple university cultures and subject-matter experts, an advantage in a field as specialized as entomology. Expertise in many subdisciplines is concentrated among relatively few individuals, and access is often limited by geography and institutional boundaries.

This is especially true in pollinator biology and taxonomy. Taxonomists, often wonderful and idiosyncratic, are thinly distributed across institutions. Opportunities for direct instruction are rare, and moments of engagement, whether through online lectures, workshops, or short courses, are invaluable. For returning students, flexibility in how learning occurs is not optional. It is essential for accessing expertise that might otherwise remain out of reach.

The Role of Mentorship in Returning to Academia

Mentorship is an essential component of returning to school. For adult and non-traditional students, mentorship is less about navigating academic mechanics and more about affirmation of purpose. Returning to formal education later in life is rarely whimsical. It is typically the result of sustained interest and deliberate choice.

What has proven most meaningful is the steady belief of mentors who treat returning students as intentional participants in the academic community. Being met with the assumption that one belongs, and has earned a seat at the table, fundamentally alters the experience of reentry. In a field where expertise is concentrated and mentorship opportunities can be limited, these relationships are central to persistence, confidence, and the ability to envision oneself as a future contributor.

What Returning Students Bring to Entomology

Returning students bring distinct assets to the discipline. Professional maturity fosters resilience, time management, and critical engagement with complex material. Experience outside academia enhances interdisciplinary thinking, allowing connections across veterinary medicine, ecology, public health, and conservation.

In entomology, where applied science and real-world relevance are central, these perspectives matter. Veterinary training emphasizes systems thinking, diagnostic reasoning, and evidence-based decision-making, all of which translate well to insect biology and ecological research. Returning students often approach training with clarity of purpose, informed by long-term goals and an understanding of how scientific knowledge functions beyond the classroom.

A Message for Students Considering a Nonlinear Path

Nontraditional academic paths are not detours. They are alternative routes that strengthen scientific disciplines. Prior experience is not a liability, even when it does not align neatly with conventional timelines. Persistence and curiosity matter more than the order in which milestones are reached.

Entomology benefits from scientists who carry long memories of curiosity, whether sparked in childhood by summer evenings when fireflies rose from the grass or rediscovered later through formal training. What matters most is not when that curiosity begins but whether it is sustained, refined, and put to work in the service of the discipline.

Christine Crick-Giltner is an entomology student at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, with a professional background in veterinary medicine. She worked for over 30 years as a veterinary anesthetist in specialty and critical care settings. She is currently completing additional coursework at the University of Wyoming and the University of Nebraska, with an eye toward graduate and professional studies in entomology and melittology, focusing on insect biology and pollinator ecology. Chris is a contributor in the Idaho Bee Atlas and a student in the Oregon State University Master Melittologist program. Email: [email protected].