Numerous ways to apply graduate school skills
Joshua Bearman M.S. ‘08 shares his unique career path in education after earning a degree from the Batten School & VIMS
“I never had a plan necessarily,” said Joshua Bearman, remarking on his unconventional educational and career path which has led him into current roles as acting executive director and programs director for a field-based educational nonprofit. “With an advanced degree, you don't have to go into research science or academia, and I saw pretty early on that research and college-level teaching weren’t where my passions lay.”
A graduate of William & Mary’s Batten School & VIMS, Bearman has woven his interest in science, education and even music into a diverse life story, but continues to lean on lessons learned while earning his M.S. at the Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences & VIMS. “I'm very much in and around rivers and bays all the time,” he said, “and I am constantly reflecting on all the things I learned at VIMS.”
Appreciating life at the Batten School & VIMS
Before attending the Batten School & VIMS, Bearman spent five years as an environmental educator at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), first working on the Tangier Sound and then on the James River. During that time, Bearman recalls, they would see Batten School & VIMS research vessels on the water, and several of his colleagues left to pursue degrees at the graduate school. “So, I was definitely interested in VIMS,” he said, “and then had a good experience meeting and interviewing with Carl Friedrichs, who ended up being my advisor. Going there was really, really great.”
Commuting from Richmond where he lived with his spouse to the Gloucester Point campus, Bearman thrived in the interdisciplinary nature of the program, “especially because I’m more of a generalist than a specialist,” he said. “So, getting a baseline of marine chemistry, marine physics, fishery science, biology and physical oceanography was enlightening and very influential for my later career in the classroom.”
Bearman also relished a close relationship with his advisor, Friedrichs. “We went to a conference in San Francisco where I got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with Carl,” recalled Bearman. “Obviously he is interested in science, but he’s also interested in art and in society, and so we’d have these fun, wide-ranging conversations. And I think Carl appreciated what I brought to the lab culture as well, in terms of wider, varying interests.”
Researching in the field, writing on the road
Bearman’s research at the Batten School & VIMS focused on the variation of tidal flats over time in South San Francisco Bay, studying how historical sediment influx and human interventions, such as the creation of salt ponds, mining and irrigation, impacted their morphology. "In areas that were more influenced by wind and wave, you would have a concave shape of a tidal flat because it has an equilibrium profile that's eroding,” he said, “and in the areas that are more tidally forced, you'd have a convex shape because it's an area where its equilibrium shape is accreting.”
Despite spending significant time analyzing data, Bearman found occasional fieldwork to be especially rewarding, whether assisting his peers or collecting his own samples. “Anytime we got to do fieldwork was a highlight for me,” he said. Bearman is particularly fond of time he spent in San Francisco, “getting up at four A.M. to get on a barge and go out into the Bay, being out in the field and watching the day happen; it was a very rarefied position to be in. I was very lucky.”
By his third year of graduate school, Bearman had completed his courses and was focused on writing his thesis—mostly. “That year I went on tour, playing with an American bluegrass string-band, The Hot Seats. So, most of my thesis was actually written on the road, which is a great place to write a thesis because you've got nothing to do for 14 hours a day,” he said. “I had a laptop, I had my bag full of printed out papers and all I needed was Wi-Fi.”
A winding path leads to nonprofit education
After graduation, Bearman spent another four years focused primarily on music before transitioning into the education field, joining the Richmond Teacher Residency program and earning a master’s degree in education. He spent seven years as a middle school science teacher, where he found his passion for working “with populations of students who aren't necessarily privy to the same experiences and privileges of other students.”
Following his time in the classroom, Bearman worked as a science specialist for the Virginia Department of Education and then as the K-12 science lead for Richmond Public Schools. Today he works for Blue Sky Fund, a nonprofit providing outdoor experiences to students in Richmond. “We run field-based education with elementary schoolers and more adventure-based learning with middle and high schoolers,” he explained.
The ultimate goal of Blue Sky Fund is to foster “environmental identity” in students. “We want our students to identify themselves as being part of the environment and be able to identify the environment all around them, whether in a park or in their neighborhood.”
As programs director, Bearman supervises and coaches the organization’s various program managers and educators, while as acting executive director he also shapes the budget and engages with board members and donors. “There is never a set thing in my day-to-day and it really is quite varied,” he said. “I would say all of my educational experiences, my time at VIMS included, have helped me prepare for having the mental flexibility to take on different tasks and switch from one mental mode to another.”
Encouragement to take roads less traveled
Among his many pieces of advice for graduate students—learn how to take notes, practice giving presentations, engage with accessible faculty, don’t overextend yourself—Bearman becomes most animated when considering all the different ways students can gain formative lived experiences before, during and after their Batten School & VIMS education.
“First, I put a lot of value in not going directly from undergraduate to graduate school, unless you really know what you want to do,” said Bearman. “Getting out into the world and seeing the possibilities that are out there is truly informative.” He also suggests that students note the diverse careers of people they interact with during graduate school. “Most of the people you meet are academic professionals, but if you have an opportunity to work with people who are in the more applied end of your science and see the differences, you may find you're more suited for one or the other. There are lots of other ways to apply one's skills.”
More than any other post-graduate avenue, Bearman recommends students consider teaching at the primary and secondary level. “By the time someone gets to college and is studying science, they already know they're a science person,” he said, “but helping people who don’t know they’re science people become science people, I personally find that very gratifying... For anyone who's excited about science, being a teacher is a pretty righteous thing to do.”
This alumni profile was written and published in March, 2025.