A Quick Glance into the Future

No witty title for this one, as it's not really an official blog post.

Really exciting things happening in the next while, so here is some incentive to keep reading!

--I'm going to talk about some skills I didn't realize I picked up from hobbies I never thought would help my career
--I'm attending a conference for the Biology of Marine Mammals at the end of this month... I'll talk about how this conference runs, things to expect, things I never saw coming and maybe even some tips on meeting, greeting and schmoozing!
--I've been accepted to an internship analyzing acoustic data of humpback whales in Puerto Rico! It's only a few weeks, but I'll talk about that aspect of the science and maybe throw a little bit about PR as well.

That's it for now. Stayed tuned for more adventures as my life continues to work out for me in the most interesting of ways.

"When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." -- Maria (Sound of Music)

Speak Loud!

Your Weakest Link: Goodbye!

First, an anecdote: Back when The Weakest Link was a semi-popular show, my grandmother ended her answering machine message with a quick "Goodbye!". Now for those of you who don't know my grandmother, she kind of looked like the host of Weakest Link, and the "Goodbye" sounded a whole lot like the way she said it. So now, that catchphrase (is that the right word?) always reminds me of my grandmother.

But onto the business of this blog.

The well known but dreaded interview question: What is one of your weaknesses? Now most people automatically want to answer "Nothing, I have no weaknesses.", but obviously this is a very large lie. So one of your weaknesses is that you are a liar. Because everyone is flawed. And 9.99 times out of ten, that flaw will effect your work in one way or another. So sooner or later, your employer will discover your weakness. Might as well be upfront about it.

It's understandable to be wary of admitting to weakness. No one wants to admit that they might not be absolutely perfect for a particular job. But no one is perfect for a particular job. But once you can recognize your weaknesses, admit to them and accept them, it's finally time to learn from them and hopefully to move on from them.

How about an example?

One of my (many, many) weaknesses that come into play a lot in my work is my fear of ineptitude (Hey, that's a word!). I can't handle that people might think I am inept or stupid in anything I do. Sometimes it's little things in life, like people expecting me to know a classic movie or the lyrics to a song; but sometimes it's something important, like knowing the statistical test for data. And my least favourite thing to do (almost) of all time, is say "I don't know". Those words are possibly as bad for me as "I was wrong" (which are almost admitting to the same thing). In the past, my fear of seeming inept has kept me from seeking help, and that has left me with some not-so-great results.

So eventually I grew up, and I realized, admitted to and accepted my weakness. Now it's time to fix it. I try to say "I don't know" more, and then try not to be relieved when my supervisors don't care that I don't know. Also, I've learned about a little thing called "research using the internet", which allows me to quickly learn things that I don't understand. Because as I have learned, self teaching and discovery can be rather rewarding!

I'm also trying to use my peer's knowledge more and more. Although I am inwardly fiercely competitive (another flaw), I am trying to realize that in the same way that I love teaching others (and believe I do so without condescension) other people might feel the same way. And that I won't feel or look stupid to them.

It's a process, just like everything else. And of course I'm also trying to work through all my many other work weaknesses.

So what can you take from all this? Work through yourself and figure out your weaknesses. Or just one to start. Realize them, accept them then it's time to work them out. And remember in an interview to be honest, but put a spin on it so that your potential employer/ supervisor knows that you are working out how to make yourself better.

Interviewer: What is one of your weaknesses?

Me: I have a strong desire to always appear as knowledgeable as people expect me to be, even when I don't know what they expect me to know. In the past this has stopped me from being comfortable with asking for help, but now I am working on being better at asking for clarification and admitting when I don't know how to do something.

Speak Loud!

Where the Ocean Meets the Sky... I'll be Looking!

Finally!

After three and a half weeks of photo-ID, we finally got to go out on surveys again!

It's really simple. We drive around on a boat looking for dolphins. When we see them, we take pictures. That's all.

Ha ha. I wish.

It's actually really hard to see the dolphins. You're just sitting on the boat, looking out to the horizon, hoping to see a dorsal fin or two. Waves make this hard, and a dark day where the dolphins are the same colour as the water... for an amateur like myself, it's daunting.

But miraculously, with a little (lot) of help from our supervisors, a pod of dolphins is spotted.

There is a lot of data collected for a sighting. Latitude, longitude, depth, salinity, water temperature, general location and the conditions (glare, cloud cover, sightability and wave height).

Then there's the taking of the pictures. Wouldn't it be nice if dolphins stayed in one place and posed pretty for a picture? Yeah, I think so too. But they don't. So they are swimming around, doing their thing, and we are doing our best to take a photo of their dorsal fin. My supervisors are absolute pros. I am honestly surprised when it turns out I took a half decent photo.

We go out for 10 days a month, which is half the month when all goes well. The weather defines if we can go out, although it doesn't always deter us. We have a route that we have to get through each time, and how long it takes depends on how many sightings we get.

Some highlights from the surveys I've done so far:

--We sometimes see other cool wildlife on surveys. Like manatees, sea turtles and rosiette spoonbills.
-- One of the dolphins is totally habituated to humans, so much so he comes up to the boats to beg for food. His name, no surprise, is Beggar. It's cool when you see him because he comes right up to the boat, so you get really close to a dolphin!
--We saw the oldest dolphin in the population, she's around 60 years old which is amazingly old for a wild dolphin.
-- We've seen some cool socializing and playing
-- Some dolphins have created really cool ways of eating. A couple families will actually chase fish along a sea wall and use that as a means of controlling where the fish swim. There's something known as 'kerplunking', where they slap the fish around with their tails, essentially knocking them unconscious before eating them. Smart cookies.
-- We see a lot of calves and young of the year. AKA really small and cute dolphins.
-- We went out in the rain one morning, boy did it rain HARD! We boated around in the rain all morning, stopped for lunch, and then the sum came out for the afternoon. Hopefully no cold comes from it!

It's a steep learning curve, but our supervisors are pretty patient and really helpful. And besides, in the real world, on the job training means that you have to train while the work is actually being done, so mistakes are easy to make, but certainly not appreciated.

But this is the type of work is the work I love. All I want to do is spend plenty of my days on boats and in the ocean looking out for the animals I love.

Speak Loud!

That's Fin-tastic!

So marine biology might seem to be all glitz and glam, but it's not all about being sloshed around on the ocean and swimming with dolphins. In fact, it's nothing like that at all. True marine biology is work. Hard work. Now ecology usually does require some field work, so there are some fun aspects to the job, where yes, you do go out on a boat and get to look at cool animals. But like most sciences, there are fun parts, then there are dull parts.

But to quote one of my favourite books (I am so happy I get to do this!): "He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness." (Bonus points to whoever can name that book. The answer will be revealed at the end of the post).

In order to appreciate the field work, I need to put in lab time. So this is an explanation of what "lab work" means to a dolphin intern.


We take pictures of dolphins. Lots and lots of pictures. Of lots of lots of dolphins. And we care about which is which. So we need to figure out who all these dolphins are.


Now we can't just ask them their name and genealogy, that's just silly. So we need to match their dorsal fins to pictures of known individual's dorsal fins.


So they give me a picture of a fin of a dolphin they don't recognize, and based on scarring, notches (bits of fin that are missing) and general shape, I have to see if I can find the fin in the database of all known 
dolphins.


Easy? No, no my friends. The picture I'm given is from 2010, and the database pictures start from back in 70s. And these are living, wild dolphins. So maybe now they have 5 cuts on their dorsal fin. But the picture of the exact same dolphin might only have three.

How do I know I'm looking at the same dolphin? Heck if I know!!

No, there are some tricks. You have to look at where on the fin the cuts and notches are, the space between them etc. And dolphins don't lose notches either. Their skin doesn't  grow over it. So if they have it, they have it.

But to break up the monotony (and it does get monotonous!), we have the chance to help with data entry and data checking. Which is also monotonous, but at least it's social and it's a different kind of monotony.

It's been exciting though, I've found a few fins in the database, which is really uplifting! Then again, I haven't found a lot of fins, which is a little depressing. It's an educated guessing game. But that's science for you!

Speak Loud!

PS. The quote is from the book The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Read it. Seriously. Read it. Don't watch the movie. Read the book.

Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy...

So now that I am living 85% of the marine biology dream, it's high time I shared a little more insight with all of you. Particularly because this blog is supposed to help aspiring marine biologists, I should give you more details about what the job actually entails.

My internship is made up of 3 parts: 49% Photo-ID, 49% Dolphin surveys and 2% Fishing surveys. By the time I got here, they had done most of the fishing, so I only got to help out on four days of fishing.

But what a four days it was.

The short story: We collect fish and measure them so we can get an idea of the composition in the bay and how well they are doing (based on size). We take more measurements and weigh the fish species that dolphins like to eat so that we can figure out the nutritional value and whether dolphins think they are yummy.

Now for the fun story:

We use a technique called purse seine netting to catch the fish. Basically the net is really big and has a heavy string at the bottom. We throw the net overboard and drive in a circle so the net goes in a circle.

The net all folded up, ready to be thrown over

The corks of the net, in a large circle

Once the net is all set out, you take the ends of the heavy rope (the "purse line") and have hydrolics pull them closed. Like tightening the purse strings... everyone get it? Now the net starts to look like a bowl (if you could see underwater). You pull and pull and pull until the purse line is as small as you can get, then you start to bring all the excess net back on board, again using the hydrolics.

We also need information about the habitat. General appearance, depth, salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and the conditions that we are sampling in (from calm and pretty to tropical storm, basically).

This is where the fish come in. To be the best fisher you can, you select the size of hole you want your net to be based on the size of fish you want to catch. Not too big that fish you want will swim through, but not too small so as to catch small fish you don't want. Generally this works really well, but you will get fat fish that get stuck in the net holes, or stupid fish that start to swim through, then want to back up and get their gills caught in the net (what we call "getting gilled"). So as the excess is getting pulled back up, you want to watch it come through in order to find any fish caught in the net (and there will be fish caught in the net).

Because you need to count every fish. Every. Single. Damn. Fish.

And you need to be fast. Because we like fish, and we don't want them to die. So the faster you get them out and get them measured, the faster they back in the water. And the faster you can move on to the next set and the faster you are finished.

So yeah... you need to be fast.

And fearless. Fish bite. And some have really pointy spines (that's the scientific terminology). Some even have sharp skin. A couple are poisonous. But they all need to be handled and counted. As an intern, I could get away with a little bit of wariness and shirking away from some of the fish, but when I grow up you have to suck it up and get 'er done.

Insider advice: only wimps use gloves. If you don't leave the boat with hands totally scraped up, you did something wrong.

We took two types of measurements because we were doing two types of projects. The first measurement was on every fish, and that was the fleshy length. That is the length from the end of the fish's nose to the end of it's skin/body (where the body turns into tail fin).

On the dolphin prey species, we took: total length (nose to very end of tail), fork length (nose to the inside of the fork), fleshy length (see above) and standard length (nose to the end of the spine). We also weighed it to the nearest 2 grams.

Once all the fish had been measured and thrown overboard (dead or hopefully alive), clean up, set the net straight and repeat.

And as bonus data, we collect samples of water to look for red tide ( some kind of algae/small organism that turns the water red. It's pretty harmless to humans unless you're allergic).

Sounds fun, hey? While it is a lot of work, it really is also a lot of fun ( if you're into that sort of thing). And I discovered that the Sarasota Bay really does have a lot of totally awesome creatures living in it. Ones that I have studied and seen dead and pickled, but here I saw them alive and kicking!

Animals like...

Sharks!

Rays!

Horseshoe crabs!

Octopus!

Burfish! (like pufferfish!)

Halfbeaks!

As well as a sea turtle or two (one was swimming in our net and a volunteer had to go out and save it).

So the moral of the story: The fishing was hard, you had to be fast, my hands look like ground beef, you smell like crap, you sweat so much and I have not had that much fun in a very, very long time.

Speak Loud.

The Intimidation Factor

There are going to be times, many, many times, in your career where you will meet people that intimidate you.

Perhaps they are a superior whose knowledge and experience seem daunting. Then your intimidation might be the result of absolute respect. I have felt this kind of fear a lot with my profs. They are brilliant, seem to know everything and their approval is the only thing that matters. Even once you discover that they are but human, your determination to impress overpowers your common sense, and every encouraging word or disciplinary act moulds ever move you make.

Then again, perhaps it is some up and coming scientist, wide eyed and naive, but who you know is much smarter than yourself. You fear that the future of your science won't be written by you, but rather them. You are intimiated by their potential to overthrow you, and you will be forced to live in a cardboard box and eat ramen noodles for the rest of your life. Fear not! Except for the few arrogant ones that no one likes and therefore will get turned away from jobs more often than not, those younger/ less experienced than you will look up to you and seek your advice simply to not trouble the waters and occasionally to be liked (see paragraph above). So don't fear them, encourage them and help them become better scientists. Most will know their place, and remember: science is a team effort.

The final category, and possibly the most terrifying of all, are your collegues. Those that are also recent graduates, looking for the same funding and the same job/academic opportunities. These are your true enemies, the one's you keep closer than your friends. You are in your own arms race, constantly keeping up the Joneses.

Or are you?

As I have recently discovered, everyone has the one-up on each other in some way or another. While a collegue might have more experience in one field of interest, you might have more experience in another. They wrote a longer thesis, but you wrote a more concise one. They went away for school to a expensive university, but you understand the value of money, don't expect your supervisor to come up with all the funding, and are ready to spend gruelling hours writing grant proposals (see last post). When you sum it all up, life, work and school experience, 95% of us are on equal footing.

I am living this out right now. Some of the other interns on paper seemed super intimidating. But as I get to know them, I find that I have experiences they don't, and even though they've had more experience in marine biology, they aren't entirely sure what they want to do in the field. I think depriving myself of it for so long forced me to really think it through and consider all the options ahead of time, which might in the end make me a better candidate for graduate school or jobs in the future.

So refuse to be intimidated! Except by your superiors, they are actually frightening. But as for the others, we're all just trying to learn new things and expose the world to new knowledge. Science can't happen from one person alone, so don't waste time being intimidated that you could be using to fuse two (or three) brilliant minds together to make the future of our planet a better one.

Speak Loud.

Must be Funny in a Rich Man's World

Hey Team!

So to all my followers eagerly anticipating my next post, I apologize for the wait. August was not a very biology-y month for me, so other than preparing for Florida (where I am sitting right now), there wasn't much for me to say. But with my internship starting in a few days (I should probably figure out how I'm going to eat...) the posts should be almost endless!

But that isn't the subject of this post. The subject, if you didn't guess from the most excellent clue in the title, is money. Specifically, how the hell am I supposed to get some.

This is another thing I was I was told back in high school about becoming a scientist. Getting your second degree is nothing like getting your first. Your bachelors is basically handed to you, all you need to do is: apply to a university, get accepted, work your ass off, and POOF! degree!

Masters: Work your ass off in your bachelors, write an Honours thesis, gain work experience, apply for grants/scholarships, get grants/scholarships, apply to supervisor, get accepted by supervisor, apply to university, get accepted to university, work your ass off, write thesis, and POOF! degree.

Sounds like a blast and a half, no?

This is not me complaining, I am more than excited to do all of it. It's just a very intimidating process. The most intimidating part though is the grant application process.

See, research costs a lot. It costs even more then you are working with giant animals that live under water where no one can see them. And most profs, even the ones who work with marine mammals, don't have thousands of dollars to fund yet another project, so they insist that students bring their own money into the mix. Especially if they want food and shelter for the next two years.

So that's where I stand. I am in the race of my life competing with other (probably more) qualified students for money to help jump start our futures and careers. And as much as I impressed my family with my grades and accomplishments, in the research arena I am a so-so candidate, and there are many more impressive people worthy of money (more on them later...).

Once I am totally settled in, I'll have to start worrying about all that. It's going to be a lot of applications, and a lot of rejections. I'm glad I went through I lot of that with my job search, I ordered a pretty think skin for that.

Enough complaining Gaby! The point of this was to help other marine biologists, not to be a whiny baby!!

So here is where to look for money to help fund research. Disclaimer: My grad student friends had to help me with this, because I had no idea where to go.

-- NSERC - one of the hardest grants to get, but therefore the most prestigious. Only the best grades, most work experience and most publications get these grants. So seriously (seriously) work hard, and make yourself into the best applicant for this grant

-- University grad scholarships - most universities have grants specifically for their grad students, so look into these. But remember, they are open to EVERY grad student in the school, so competition is high.

-- Society scholarships - If you belong to a biology-related society (which you should.... a few even), they might have research scholarships for members and even specifically students. The applicant pool is much smaller for these, so you have a better chance of getting one.

--Online resources - there are websites (like www.studentawards.com) that help you by listing all the scholarships you might be eligible for. Although the name of the scholarship can be important at times (see NSERC), it's the money in your hands that is the finish line. So apply to even the most obscure scholarships, because you're not going to care who's memorial scholarship it is when you have a couple grand to buy groceries with.

I'll be starting my own money making process soon. Hopefully I get something from someone so that I can make my Master's student dream into a reality.

Speak Loud!