Waking up to dozens of hefty, hairy – not to mention dangerously horny – beasts is not something one normally experiences during a summer internship.

But for 27-year-old Jason Steger, seeing herds of buffalo beyond his window in the morning was a common occurrence.

Before graduating from the University in August, Steger participated in a summer internship with the Student Conservation Association, the nation’s largest and oldest provider of nature-oriented service opportunities for youth.

SCA offers students thousands of expense-paid, tuition-free internships and volunteer opportunities that last anywhere from three months to a year. Students can apply for positions in over 50 disciplines and in a variety of locations all across America, including many national parks.

Steger spent three months at Theodore Roosevelt National Park located in the badlands of North Dakota. While there, he worked with a resource management team to eradicate exotic plants that were encroaching on the native species.

Pulling up plants, however, wasn’t the only task Steger had.

“I ended up doing a lot more than I thought I was going to do,” Steger said. “It was pretty incredible.”

Among his many activities at the park, Steger said his favorite was rounding up buffalo on horseback.

On top of having fun, Steger made important contacts and learned many valuable skills.

“It’s a great life experience,” Steger said. “The things you learn – you can’t experience them any other way.”

“When you first find out about SCA, it almost sounds too good to be true,” said Malinda Lovic, a campus recruitment representative for SCA. “And then you look into it and you realize it really is that great.”

Lovic speaks from experience, having done two internships with SCA before accepting a position at their headquarters in New Hampshire.

Not only do SCA internships help students advance in their careers, but they can also change students’ lives, Lovic said. The SCA’s motto is, “changing lives through service to nature.”

“SCA has set my life on a different course in a good way,” said Lovic, who never imagined she would end up working with a conservation group, having majored in textiles at Cornell University.

Students don’t have to be pursuing a career in nature-related areas in order to apply for an internship, Lovic said. While some positions require course work in specific fields, many do not.

“SCA has an incredibly broad range of opportunities for students,” Lovic said. “I would challenge anyone to look through our database and try to find something that doesn’t interest them.”

SCA’s database of available internships can be found on their Web site (www.thesca.org). Students can sort through all the available positions according to service types, locations, dates of service and other criteria. Students can also apply for these positions online.

Some of the positions are very competitive and receive a lot of applications because of their popular locations, according to the Web site. However, that doesn’t mean the work there is always glamorous.

Alumna Michelle Cook, 24, managed to nab a coveted position in Yellowstone National Park after she graduated from the University in 2004.

For the three months of her internship, Cook worked with the park’s lake trout removal program. Much of that time was spent slicing the dead, netted trout into pieces and chucking them back in the lake to replenish its nutrients.

“You have to be prepared to get wet and messy,” Cook said.

Even with her fish-dismembering duties, Cook said the weather and park’s isolation were actually the hardest things to get used to.

“The park is really remote, and it was about three hours from the nearest Wal-Mart,” Cook said. “I’m used to Wal-Mart being no more than 10 minutes from my house, so three hours is a big switch.”

Nonetheless, Cook said she enjoyed the opportunity to stay in Yellowstone and would like to do another internship with SCA.

“It was a great experience,” Cook said.