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Julia Ricks ’22
Julia Ricks ’22, wearing a backpack and giving two thumbs up, smiles on a hiking trail in front of a backdrop of red rock canyons and green trees
Julia Ricks ’22, wearing a backpack and giving two thumbs up, smiles on a hiking trail in front of a backdrop of red rock canyons and green trees
Mac was super formative for who I am because it gave me practice adding variety to my life and showed me that I could have a career doing something I loved.
Julia Ricks ’22

Geology Major
Educator at Denver Museum of Nature and Science
First Job • Museums • Teaching • Science Education • FYC

As a museum educator, I present programs for kids who come to the museum on field trips, as well as teaching an online puberty class and working at offsite events through our mobile museum. Right now, it’s so important to have real conversations about science with people, to humanize it, to help people realize that anyone can be a scientist. I love when I get talking to a kid and I can see that something that they are learning inspires them to explore more. I want them to understand that kids are scientists too: they ask questions, make observations, test things, make connections, and push my thinking, which is so exciting.

The grounding in scientific concepts that Mac gave me, in my geology major and biology minor, of course help with the content of the programs I teach. But I also constantly use what I learned in creative writing and poetry classes because when I’m teaching kids, I need to know how to organize my thoughts, use metaphors, and tell a story. And I find myself drawing on my extracurriculars at Mac too. I worked as a tour guide on campus, was a TA, co-founded and directed the Mac Pep Band, was the geology club president. All this practice jumping into new things set me up for a job where every day is different and where I’m surrounded by co-workers who are scientists, poets, and actors, and everyone is always wanting to talk and learn.

My advisors at Mac had connections with this museum, which helped me get the internship in the paleontology collections that led to my current job. I enjoy how the work taps into my social and chatty side. And I am grateful that Mac gave me an extensive background in research—a summer research project, an honors thesis—that made it possible to start a career doing the thing I love most: talking about science. Now that I’m here, I’ve also been able to continue along the research path doing fieldwork with this museum and with The Prehistoric Museum in Utah. I help them with dinosaur excavations!

If I could give one piece of advice to current students, it would be: pay more attention to the spaces and the kinds of things that make you feel the best. I wasn’t the happiest sitting in front of a computer all day, but I was really happy in classrooms. I have always loved meeting new people, networking at events, and now I can imagine longer-term paths for myself as an educator, or in science writing or museum studies.

Last updated: November 2025