My Evolution From Teacher to Marine Biologist by Kailey

My Evolution From Teacher to Marine Biologist by Kailey - June 2017 Scholarship Essay

Like some six year olds, I wanted to originally be a teacher. I loved mine and I liked working with little children. I also thought it was a pretty cool thing to be. I could educate others and help them. I thought it would be really fun. I soon learned that being a teacher was not as fun as I imagined it to be. After I found that out, I did not really know what I wanted to be.
I discovered that I was a decent artist sometime while I was still in elementary school. I do not really remember when I decided I wanted to be a fashion designer, but I know that it was sometime in elementary school. I loved to draw different outfits and to color. Art was a passion of mine and I was somewhat decent at it. One year for Christmas my aunt had gotten me a book with "models" in it so that I could draw clothing on. She also got me a 100 pack of colored pencils. It is still one of the best presents I have ever gotten. Ever since I got that book, I knew I wanted to be a fashion designer.
When I got to the sixth grade, I was in this special honors program. I had to do an independent study. The topic I chose was fashion designing. By choosing that as my topic I could learn more about being a fashion designer. I found out during the project that I was not very good at sewing, which is an important skill to have as a fashion designer. After I finished the project I still wanted to be a fashion designer but not as much I use to. I still loved art and I got better as I went through middle school, but after finding out that fashion designers are very busy and have little time for their family, I was disappointed. It was a letdown. I also found out that there are not that many jobs in the field.
It wasn't until I got to high school that I decided that I did not really want to be a fashion designer anymore. My mother finally steered me away from fashion designing when I was a sophomore in high school. At that point, my parents convinced me that I should do something in science. We realized that I had always been good at science. That is when I came up with an oceanographer. I had always been curious about what else could be down there. I mean 75% of the Earth is made up of water, there has to more down there. It really interested me. When I came up with oceanographer, I was sure that it was an actual thing. I had just combined ocean with a root word that made sense for what I wanted to do. Once I found out that it was a real thing, I knew that is what I wanted to be.
When I took the PSAT that year, it asked me for the major I wanted in college. I filled in marine biology/oceanography. That's when I started to consider being a marine biologist. I had never considered marine biology because some kid did their independent study on it, but they only talked about sharks. It was a bit annoying. From then on, though, I wanted to do marine biology/oceanography. That was not the end though.
Later that same school year, my mom convinced me that there were also no jobs in marine biology. She unknowingly did have some help. Some of my friends had told me that there were too many marine biologists. Again my mom convinced me that it was not the right career for me. She just wanted what was best for me. At that point, I did not know what I wanted to do anymore.
The summer after my sophomore year, me and my mom went on my first college visit. I really liked it. I had been steered to environment science now. I had always been passionate about wanting to protect the Earth. Renewable energy really interested me. That is when I decided I was going to be an environmental scientist, although I still did really want to be a marine biologist. I was all about the environment from that point on.
This past school year was my junior year of high school. I had done a career research project on environmental scientists for my English class. I learned more about being an environmental scientist and it sounded like a career I would really enjoy. Although I did not believe I would enjoy it as much as I would marine biology. That is when we visited a college called Gannon University. They had freshwater/marine biology as one of the majors they offered. I was so excited. Later we visited with the professor who was in charge of the program. He convinced my mom that there were jobs in marine biology. From that point on I wanted to be a marine biologist again. That is how I knew that marine biology is the career for me. That is how I got from being a teacher to marine biologist.