Take it or Leave it

This afternoon I finally had what I've been anticipating for the last couple months-- a job interview. The hiring official for a position I applied for in early May emailed me last week, asking if I was still interested in the job and when she could contact me.

I was initially very excited. I've never interviewed for a position without being offered a job, and I'm perfectly qualified for the work. In fact, I even have experience beyond what they were requesting. Not to mention the fact that the job sounded amazing-- a six-month internship in a gorgeous part of the country tracking bobcats and mountain lion. Most of the position will involved radio telemetry of collared animals, scat surveys, and small mammal surveys, but the organization traps bobcats July through February, and mountain lions June through October, which means that part of the internship would involve trap monitoring, and, if a capture occurred, assistance anesthetizing, processing, and collaring the cats, a rare experience for anyone, let alone someone my age.

I was also really intrigued by the organization's study questions, and the motivation behind their data collection. The broad ecological theories behind their research overlaps a great deal with my personal research interests, and I know that I'd easily be able to justify hours spent in rough field conditions doing repetitive surveys if I could remind myself of the greater purpose behind the study.

So that's all well and good. The problem? The housing provided by the organization is dormitory-style, which means 1.) a bedroom shared with one or two other individuals, and 2.) no pets allowed. I'm a strongly introverted person, and I play best with others when given a decent chunk of time every day to myself. I also tend to function better when I have something small and furry on which to devote my attention. If I were to think, I'm mean really think about the potential experience gained during this type of internship versus the cost of sharing housing and leaving my rats to someone else for half a year, I might just decide that it would be worth it. But that's not the only thing making me think twice.

The internship is unpaid.

That, more than anything else, makes me wary about the thought of accepting the position. Half a year spent with no discernible income. Six months without adding to my savings account. Six months, instead, withdrawing from it to meet basic expenses-- food, gas, health insurance. My intentions for my time spent between undergraduate and grad school were to get as much good field experience as possible while saving up as much money as possible for the future, not to have to spend what I've already saved. I initially thought I could bypass this issue by getting a part-time job in the evenings or on weekends. But I was informed during the interview that it would be nearly impossible to do so, due to the long and unpredictable hours of the internship.

Now I'm torn. The study seems worthwhile, the location phenomenal, the opportunity to track and capture wild felids, fantastically awesome. But is it worth half a year sharing housing, trusting my rats to someone else, and taking a decent chunk of money out of savings?

What would you do?