The Cultivation of a Species
For Paige Trabucchi ’18, it’s more than just an internship, it’s contributing to something much bigger—our environment.
As a liberal studies major, Paige Trabucchi ’18 has been able to experience a smorgasbord of internships. From a physical therapy office to a middle school guidance department, she’s found the flexibility to explore various opportunities across industries. And now, she’s adding beekeeping to her resume.
Trabucchi says being a liberal arts major with a minor in environmental science has allowed her to really explore what she’s looking for in a career. She explains, “It has given me the chance to have a variety of internship experiences, and it was perfect because I realized that my first two internships were not the direction I wanted to pursue.”
Her senior-year internship with The Best Bees Company, a full-service beekeeping operation, helped her realize her passion to pursue a career in the environmental science field. For Trabucchi, a typical day on internship is traveling to local hives, checking on the health of the hive, making sure each hive has a queen bee (a hive can’t survive without one), harvesting honey, and sometimes providing treatments to hives fighting disease. She shares that she was surprised by how many hives there are in Boston and as far north as Maine, “it’s cool that so many people are trying to help the environment.”
With growing buzz around the impending extinction of bees, and what that means for life as we know it, many beekeepers have taken measures to grow the honey bee population. And even some non-beekeepers have decided to give it a go, for the sake of the environment. For Trabucchi, it’s more than an internship, it’s the cultivation of an entire species.
“My favorite part about this internship is that I am contributing to something much bigger than myself. The damage that people have done to the environment is shocking, and it’s great to see that there are passionate individuals out there who want to alter the destructive path that we are on,” states Trabucchi.
As for her career path, Trabucchi says that her experience with The Best Bees Company has taught her that the last thing she wants is a desk job. Traveling to local beehives made her realize she loved the traveling aspect of her work. She says, “I need to pursue a career where I am doing things and not confined to one area.”
She hopes to pursue a career in the environmental science field that allows her to be doing the type of meaningful work she craves. She says of her experience, “It’s really a great experience. The people at Best Bees Company are the most passionate, driven people I have ever met. Every single person there wants to be there. It’s cool seeing that it’s possible to love your job.”
Next to-do for Trabucchi is to, “Get Endicott College a beehive. It’s a great way to make an environmentally friendly contribution to the community.” She says the honey’s pretty sweet, too.