My Caling by Maggie

My Caling by Maggie - April 2025 Scholarship Essay

I remember as far back as I can recall, I have always had a strong bond and love of all animals. I have always felt the need to help them and nurture their well-being with whatever they have suffered in any way. Studying related aquatic science classes, I became aware of the brutal current state of our oceans and the way humans treat oceans and sea life. Every year, hundreds of thousands of marine mammals are killed. Whether it's by plastic pollution, consequences of overfishing, bycatch, finning, etc., my calling is to solve some of the unfortunate events and help revive their livelihood. I want my impact to be positive by making our oceans alive and healthy again by cleaning up our oceans and finding ways to better human involvement in sea life.

I'm studying Marine Biology because I believe that my purpose is to make the oceans healthy and alive again, starting with marine mammals. I intend to go into the Marine Biology field and become a Marine Mammalogist to work solely with saltwater mammals that have been affected by the unimaginable hardships that humans have brought upon them. An experience that truly inspired me to choose this career path was when my family and I took a vacation down to Florida. We were on a dolphin tour, and then we all noticed that there were a few dolphins that were racing the boat we were on. It made me realize how innocent and playful these beautiful animals are. I look back on that time a lot and it breaks my heart to know that thousands of them are killed off every day. Dolphins aren't the only animals that suffer through this, so I want to be the help that every marine mammal deserves. When I’m able to make my career happen, I hope to be the person that goes out and rescues the animal, brings it back, figures out what happened to it and why, and work with my team to communicate with other conservationists to find ways to prevent it from happening again. My main goal is to make the oceans alive again and to save the animals that never deserved the pain us humans brought them.