After growing up in a remote area surrounded by nature, I strongly prefer this lifestyle to living in the city or suburbs. I currently do photography, and I’ve thought about starting my own business in the future. I’m seriously considering a business/entrepreneurship minor. Other than that, what majors or career fields can you think (creative fields preferred) that would allow for working/living in a remote area?
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I’m curious about business opportunities for photographers in remote areas. Who would be the clientele? Or hoping to do art photography and marketing it remotely? Really just curious.
There are plenty of schools that have forestry majors. Marine scientist? Anthropology?
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I know a fair number of computer science type people who work remotely far from their offices.
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@intparent What type of computer science people exactly? Would any of these jobs be attainable without a CS degree, or with a CS minor?
Well, working remotely is different from working in a remote/rural area. I work at Microsoft, and we have a fair amount of people who work ‘remotely’ pretty often or even 100% of the time. Most of them are either 1) service engineers who work on back-end stuff and are servicing the local area’s needs or 2) in sales and manage accounts in their region. But few if any of them live in remote areas - you have to have an area with a strong Internet connection, and you’ll still have videoconference meetings with people at HQ or in-person meetings with your clients if you are in sales.
If you are interested at all in earth sciences, atmospheric sciences, agricultural/food sciences or environmental/sustainability sciences, those are careers you can pursue in pretty remote areas (and sometimes, have to). Think about conservation work in rural/remote Alaska, or meteorology or oceanography research in the Arctic, or sustainability work in agriculture in the Heartland. There are also anthropologists who do research on humans who live in pretty remote areas, although this is a difficult field to get into and you’d likely have to split your time at a university in a more populated area.
In creative/artistic fields, you’d probably be working as a freelancer. With a strong Internet connection (something remote areas often don’t have), you could do freelance writing or artwork for a variety of businesses. With photography, there may be some nature/science magazines or websites that need photographers willing to live in rural areas - although those may also require travel between different rural areas over time, and not just living in a permanent place.
Another option is health professions fields. There’s a dire need for more health professionals in rural areas who can serve the populations there, especially for physicians, nurses, dentists, and physician assistants (but across many fields). You will also probably have to travel many miles to service people, since folks in rural areas tend to live less densely. There are some programs out there designed to reimburse the educational costs of folks who choose to work in high-need areas, and most rural areas are pretty high need. Few people who go into these professions want to live and stay in rural areas, so that might be lucrative for you.
You might find living in a small town or a small city in a relatively rural location a compromise. Many big companies have outposts in smaller towns or cities that few of their employees actually want to move to/live in, and you may have an advantage.
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I worked remotely for many years before retiring, and still do some consulting remotely. This is in high tech with degrees in mathematics and operations research with some software engineering courses. However, I needed something like 20+ years of experience before I started working remotely, and still required access to a good airport in order to occasionally get to meetings. High speed Internet access was also a necessity.
I used to know someone who was a forestry major. He worked for a large lumber company and spent a lot of his work time in the woods scoping out where the economically viable trees were, where temporary roads could be put in to access the trees, understanding the condition of the trees, and so on. There is a different type of forestry major (as far as I know generally offered at the same schools in the same department) that is aimed at being a forest ranger. I am not sure how hard it is to get a job in this area.
I think that @juillet has a good point that anywhere where there are people, there is a need for health professionals. From what I have heard rural areas are often under-served in terms of the availability of health care.
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There are some colleges that offer degree programs in “resort” management where you study to eventually work at a ski resort.
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I’m surprised no one has mentioned the National Park Service. If you are interested in conservation and the outdoors then you could aspire to be a ranger. If business is more your thing then there are a handful of companies that dominate the concessions at these sites (e.g. Delaware North).
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Geology seems a likely major, too. – SD Mines has a great program – https://www.sdsmt.edu/Academics/Departments/Geology-and-Geological-Engineering/Geology-and-Geological-Engineering/
Aquaculture
Wind farming - how you prepare for this degree, I’m not sure, but alternative forms of energy seem likely.
Do you like the sea? You may want to try the merchant marines. good pay, excellent training, see the world, transferable skills if you want to go ashore permanently. Schools for this include–
Maine Maritime Academy – https://mainemaritime.edu/
SUNY Maritime (which incidentally has some of the highest starting salaries of any school) (and I think it’s not that expensive, as these things go) – https://www.sunymaritime.edu/
Massachusetts Maritime Academy – https://www.maritime.edu/
Cal State Maritime – https://www.csum.edu/web/mycampus/home
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Thanks for all the suggestions! I just decided to throw this out without too many details – I do have some interest in earth/ocean sciences, but not other hard sciences. Not interested in healthcare. Freelancing is what I do now (part time), though I’m kind of hoping to have another plan in case that doesn’t work out well enough.
Also, just to clarify, remote may not mean as remote as some of you are thinking. Think small communities, coastal towns, areas with beaches/hiking trails/a few stores. Not entirely the middle of nowhere.
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