Master’s student from Belize describes how mentors helped him succeed in the wildlife profession
Life can sometimes catch up to your dreams—and dismantle them before they ever take flight. The pressure to help at home, the weight of personal struggles and the lack of resources can all quietly stack against you. Even when you’re passionate and driven, it can feel like life is always one step ahead, ready to pull you off course.
I know this because I nearly gave up on my dreams.
It was my second year at Sacred Heart Junior College in Belize, and life had taken a sharp, painful turn. I was facing an intensely personal situation that left me emotionally drained and struggling to keep up. I had made the decision to leave school—everything felt too heavy, too uncertain. My dream of a future in science suddenly felt like it belonged to someone else.
But the advice of successful people who had once been in the same situation made the difference for me—and paved a mindset for my journey.
Leroy Jones, the head of the Science Department at Sacred Heart, was one of those people. He became far more than a professor—he became a lifeline.
In the middle of all the uncertainty, Jones didn’t magically fix the situation, but he shifted how I saw it. He made it seem possible, as though the path to completing my education wasn’t as complicated or unreachable as I had made it out to be. When the storm finally calmed, I remember telling him, “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay your kindness.”
He answered with words that marked the purpose of my journey: “Just do the same for someone else, when you get to the top. Expand your learning—it’ll take you places and help you learn things you never imagined.”
Those words rewired my trajectory. I stayed in school and finished my degree. Every person I assisted felt like a small promise kept. When late-night study sessions blurred into dawn, I pictured a future student who might need the same encouragement—and I pushed on.
Today, that vision shapes everything I do. As a master’s student in wildlife conservation at Virginia Tech, I help mentor undergraduate students in our department, encourage my peers, support fellow Belizean students who may feel the same pressures I once did, and share my research experience with forest rangers, conservation workers and anyone who’s curious about this path.
Each act of service is a living repayment of Jones’ kindness—a reminder that learning really can carry you to places you never imagined, from classroom chalkboards to remote jungle canopies.
His words still resound whenever doubt creeps in. They remind me that resilience grows in community and that our greatest achievements mean little if we climb alone. So, I keep surrounding myself with people who dream bigger, work harder and lift higher while making room for the next climber.
That’s how dreams survive the storms.
Wildlife Vocalizations is a collection of short personal perspectives from people in the field of wildlife sciences. Learn more about Wildlife Vocalizations, and read other contributions.
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