Help Mallaidh Anne Graduate

***VIDEO BEGINS WITH A ROUGHLY 1 MINUTE SUMMARY. You do not have to watch the full, in-depth video unless you want to!***


Summary: I have been working diligently over the last four years to earn my bachelors degree in wildlife biology. I am reaching the finish line this December, but I have just been made aware that I am about at my cap for federal student loans and grants and that I won’t be able to cover my tuition and living expenses this summer and fall in order to complete my degree.

I am a dedicated student who left my previous school (a two year program) with multiple academic awards, including the school’s top honor chosen by the board of trustees and professors. As soon as I transferred to my current school to finish my degree, I received honors for finishing my first semester with a 4.0. I am working more than one job, volunteering, interning, and shadowing professors to learn all that I can. For four years I have done everything I can to succeed, but hard work isn’t all it takes. I need the funding, by August 1st.

I am exhausting all other options for funding, but they are extremely limited, so I am fundraising as what is my best option and hope. In return, I will be posting videos and doing live-streams for any of my readers, even if you can’t donate, about nature, wildlife, and all I’ve been learning over the last four years. Thank you so much for your consideration!

Keep reading for more details!

INFO: My name is Mallaidh Anne, I am a student in West Virginia, originally from Southeast Ohio, and I am a senior currently studying Wildlife and Fisheries Biology! Any and all donations to this campaign will be withdrawn by me into my own bank account, not through another party, and go directly toward my tuition, class fees, and housing expenses for my final semester in West Virginia in fall 2019!



Hello everyone! If you’ve been following me for any time at all, you may know I’m majoring in wildlife biology. You may also know what a struggle it was for me to get here. In high school, I was reeling from the loss of my father, along with trying to cope with undiagnosed mental illness and autism. I was told by my school staff I wasn’t “smart enough” to pursue science.

Four years after I graduated high school, I said “I don’t believe that,” and I started my path and made it to where I am today despite those early challenges, and as I say in the video, I love it. I love what I’m learning, and I love what I do.

In wildlife studies, I don’t just get to enrich my own knowledge of the world. I’m given the chance to share what I learn with others. In the last four years I have worked as a camp counselor, as a naturalist, and volunteered hundreds of hours to public education about wildlife, plants, and the world around us.

This is more than a degree or a career to me. It’s a call to duty. I could become the smartest wildlife biologist in the world, but nothing I studied would matter if people don’t understand, care about, or connect to the world.

I have gotten hundreds if not thousands of messages and had teenagers approach me in person who ask how to study what I study. I get messages from adults asking if it’s “too late.” And I’m thrilled to tears that I get to be the person my own younger self needed when I tell them, “no. It’s never too late. You are smart enough, and you can do this, and here’s how.”

But I’m not in the clear yet. I have one semester left, and I’ve just learned I’ve about hit my maximum financial aid allowance for independent (not dependent on my parents) ungraduate students.

This fall, I will not receive enough aid to cover my tuition and my living expenses.

As I say in the video, I am exhausting all options for funding, but things are looking desperate at this point.
I May receive some aid, but not enough to cover my costs, and what’s more is that I will not know exactly how much I’m getting and exactly how much I’ll need until only 4 weeks before the bill is due.

I have based my fundraising amount on the cost of my previous semesters. This includes, tuition, individual class fees, housing, food, textbooks (I always get them used of course), and other miscellaneous costs that come up in schooling throughout the year.

My major includes a lot of fieldwork, and in the I often have to purchase specific equipment  beyond just textbooks such as:
 
-waders for my fisheries classes ($70 used on eBay)
-insulated muck boots ($60)
-compass with a mirror for multiple classes ($30)
-binoculars for multiple classes ($70 used on eBay)
-drybag ($30)
-wetsuit ($99 on sale)
-reliable raincoat and rain pants ($65 used on eBay)

I am as thrifty as possible, often finding my equipment used when I can, but the costs add up.

I cannot do this alone. I do not have relatives from whom I can borrow. I am out of options, but I am so close to the finish line. All of this work I’ve done, and all of the work I will do next, all depends on finishing in the next year. I need you help.

In return, I will be doing weekly livestreams. Anyone can attend! Not just donors. Come, sit, chat. I will also be doing nature videos full of what I’ve learned in the last four years, because my passion really is sharing that knowledge.

I hope you’ll join me in those, and I hope you’ll consider helping me finish.

I know I am asking for a lot, and it feels very vulnerable, exposing, to put myself out there like this, discussing my finances and debt, but we have to be vulnerable sometimes, don’t we? That’s life.

I am doing my best to be as transparent as possible without totally compromising every aspect of my personal life. I will answer questions, and everything raised her will go directly to finishing my degree this year.

Than you for considering me!
It means the whole world.