Alumna profile: Melany Arriola, BSUS ‘20
Melany Arriola, Bachelor of Sustainability ’20, was looking for a holistic undergraduate program in sustainability, and found it at Chatham. “It also has a benefit after you graduate,” she says. “Because it’s so interdisciplinary, you have a lot of flexibility in terms of what kind of job you can envision yourself in.”
Originally from Los Angeles, Arriola was pursuing a degree in economics at a community college when she realized that it felt “very one-sided,” she says. Switching gears, she began to look for something more well-rounded. “A lot of the sustainability programs I came across focused on the natural sciences or natural resource management. But I really wanted a program that looked at it from different perspectives and brought the social side to it. That’s how I landed on Chatham’s,” she says.
Arriola chose the renewable energy and urban systems track, and credits a class called “Sustainable Cities” in helping her make that choice. “It’s interesting to better understand the places, the buildings, the cities, that we live in,” she says. “The class focuses on ‘systems thinking’ – the understanding that problems have multiple factors. All these issues that I used to view as linear and one-sided actually have so many other factors going into them.”
Arriola completed an independent capstone project with her advisor, Dr. Iris Grossman. “Dr. Grossman is investigating the feasibility of underwater submarine cables to share solar power between the northern and southern hemispheres,” she says. “I contributed to the literature review, looking at what kind of existing infrastructure is out there, what are the best practices in terms of cable design, and how is it going to be economically feasible.”
Arriola cites the opportunity to live at Eden Hall Campus as a strong selling point to Chatham’s sustainability program that did not disappoint. “Sometimes in class, we’d just get up and tour the building, talking to the staff who manage the systems, asking them to explain how it works. Having the opportunity to be visiting what you’re learning about is so cool—it’s not just textbook, it’s a real world example of how it’s being used. And Eden Hall Campus is beautiful! It was so great to be able to go out for a walk after class, and just get lost on the trails. And I definitely miss the food! The chefs are amazing, and sometimes produce grown on the actual Eden Hall Campus farm was used to make your dinner. That was another cool factor of being at Eden Hall.”
“I stayed all the semesters I could. Even if you’re a city person, you should experience living at Eden Hall Campus at least once.”
Most students at Chatham do at least one internship—one is required—but Arriola completed several. She credits her internship with the City of Pittsburgh as being the most informative. “I was a City Planning intern with the Sustainability and Resilience Division,” she says. “I was focusing on the different types of climate stressors that are affecting Pittsburgh, and how can we prepare for that. It was a lot of looking through flooding and landslide data and trying to see trends in what people are observing every day. I think why the internship was so valuable was because I got to learn so much about Pittsburgh and understand what kind of resources are out there and understand what the city is doing.”
“I think it’s interesting too because I didn’t think of Pittsburgh as a sustainability hub, but working for the City and seeing how connected Pittsburgh was to different cities in the US—I could see that we’re actively collaborating and learning from each other.”
After graduating, Arriola wanted to continue working with the City, and they wanted to keep her longer, so she ended up completing two Student Conservation Association fellowships there.
Today, Arriola works as a planner in transportation for the Stanislaus Council of Governments in California. “What attracted me to transportation was that it’s one of those sectors that has the most potential to make an impact in sustainability,” she says. “Currently it’s one of the highest producers of greenhouse gas emissions, so there’s potential to improve that. I bring the systems thinking that I learned from Chatham into my workplace.”
She’s had many disparate experiences, and credits the field of sustainability. “Sometimes in interviews that I’ve had, they’ve said ‘Whoa, you’re in a bunch of different fields; how did you do that?’ and it’s like ‘Well, sustainability can be applied in many different fields,’ so it really opened the door when I was looking for internships. At first it’s scary because the internship may not say ‘sustainability’, so you may wonder if you’re a good fit, but it’s about finding how you can fit in, rather than finding those exact key words.”
In addition to working, Arriola is also currently in graduate school, pursing a degree in Geographic Information Science (GIS). “I got exposed to GIS at Chatham, and it’s always been a part of what I’ve done—using all the knowledge I learned at that one class at Chatham. I think it would be more beneficial and useful if I had more advanced skills in GIS that I could bring to my work. I want to do so many more analyses, so I’m learning how. I’m particularly interested in the potential to bridge data and personal stories.”
When asked what she would say to someone considering Chatham’s BSUS program, Arriola says “I would say don’t be afraid if you think you don’t fit the description because I think everyone can find a little bit of what they’re looking for in one of the tracks. Come with an open mind. Be willing to change some of your perspectives. There’s so much flexibility. I think it’s a very unique program.”
Ready to explore Chatham’s Bachelor of Sustainability? Visit our website to check out the sustainability program and to see what other undergraduate programs Chatham offers.