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Jonathan: So to begin, let's talk about college. What made you decide to major in environmental science?
Caroline: Well, my experience came out my life as a swimmer. I was involved in the Deaf Olympics
and swim for many years. My father was a professor of economics
and we moved to Annapolis, Maryland at one point and we got a house that was right on a creek.
However, two summers in a row we weren't allowed to swim in the creek because of the level of pollution
and that had a huge impact on me. I had a passion to do something about that.
So my goal was to go to college and either be a lawyer to change the situation,
or to be an environmental scientist to change the situation
and it just so happened that the year that I went into Harvard
they had a brand new major that combined both of those who was perfect for me.
Afterwards some of my classmates went on to advanced studies and public policy
some went on to advanced studies in environmental sciences.
Around that same time you may have seen Al Gore's presentation that he presented across the United States
called 'An Inconvenient Truth' that later became a movie.
That also had an impact on me. Al Gore had been a senator for many years
working hard to try to make changes in environmental law and impact the situation.
And progress was slow, frankly
and, you know, at that point there were people who were scientists
who were working on the problem and people who were in public policy working on the problem
but they weren't talking to each other. They were two divergent communities, basically.
and what I wanted to see happen is to be some kind of a bridge between those two communities.
So the Harvard program at that point was perfect for me because it did just that.
Five years after we all graduated with that degree, some of my classmates went on to public policy,
Some went on to other science majors,
but it was interesting to see how the joining of those two disciplines impacted all of us.
Jonathan: Wow! That is interesting. So there were two factors, basically.
whatever happened to the creek?
Caroline: Well it was an interesting story. Later we realized that the situation with the creek
was one where most of the pollution was either caused by sewage being dumped
or pollution from motorized watercraft. Jonathan: Sure
Caroline: Yeah, so there were a number of factors that lead to that pollution,
but it was so disappointing as a kid to walk out to the end of our dock and not be able to get in the water
and I just said 'this can't be right...I have to do something about this'.
and it's actually illegal to swim in the Anacostia River now.
Boats are allowed but people are not allowed to get in the water physically
Jonathan: Really?! I mean, what happens if somebody falls out of the boat?
Caroline: I know, it's ironic that you can put boats on but you can actually get in
and I certainly would be careful not to let my boat tip over and end up in that water
Because when I was out doing my fieldwork, I saw dead cats in that water.
I mean, I would not want to fall in. It's very polluted.
Jonathan: Yeah, you want to avoid that, for sure!
Caroline: Well, what I want to do is improve the situation, that's what I really want to do
Jonathan: Good point.
So, you're talking about environmental science and public policy,
what courses were the most difficult for you and the most challenging, and why?
Caroline: No doubt, my organic chemistry course. Many colleges use this course to see which students should continue in the sciences,
and for many disciplines, not just in my field.
So...it's actually, you know, everyone says 'ugh! organic chemistry'
no one likes it, but at the same time there are basic components of that class
that are one of the foundations of work that comes after that. But a lot of people just want that A to get into medical school.
It's not just passing the class but getting an A, they don't get into medical school.
So, after that I went on to other courses were I actually got to do
you know, chemical biology, which I loved. The other course that was really difficult for me was physics.
I had a really cool physics professor, Eric Mazur, who was instrumental in developing
the real-time classroom questionnaire response system.
That's where every student clicks their response to a multiple choice question
and then after everyone responds it shows the correct answer.
Of course, today everyone has those systems, but at the time it was brand new.
So students got instant feedback which really helps.
Organic chemistry and physics were the tough ones for me.
Jonathan: Yeah, I know. I took a course here in organic chemistry.
It was the same type of thing that I went through. I mean, it was a tough, tough course.
Caroline: One thing I'll tell you is when you get into graduate school, into biology
you have to take physical oceanography in my field,
and by the time I got to that I just felt like saying 'thank you'
so, the frustration has its rewards in the end.
Jonathan: Yeah, that's true. Wow.
So, next question. You attended three different colleges and got three different degrees
and you have a very, very diverse educational background. The University Washington, Harvard...
What made you pick these different colleges, why was that?
Caroline: Well, how I picked Harvard was a long story, but I'll try to tell you the short version up here
Jonathan: No, no please!
Caroline: Well actually, honestly, I didn't know where I wanted to attend college, but the way the process happened was interesting
I applied to what I thought were the best schools
and then I applied to some schools that I thought were safe schools
and then I applied University of Delaware, where my father taught, and to the University of Maryland.
Now I'm a swimmer, like I said, so the swim team at each college was an issue for me,
and some of the schools were division two, not division 3, and I sent out applications to Harvard, Brown, and Princeton.
And that went very well. I also went for a visit to Yale
and then my parents had both gone to very small colleges and were supportive of the concept of the small college.
My mother had gone to Mount Holyoke and my dad to Amherst
and both of those colleges are, you know, women's and men's colleges within the same town
so the suggestion was made, that they threw out, was Wesleyan University
because it's a small college similar to the ones that they went to.
and then I also applied to Georgetown because it was close to Gallaudet
because a lot of deaf friends were there, and the things i was looking at was deaf community,
good academics, and a good swim team. Those were my three criteria for school.
So I sent out 8 applications altogether to eight different colleges
and I thought that the rejections would help me narrow it down.
The problem was I got accepted at seven out of the eight schools.
So that left me with a little bit of a dilemma. So how I proceeded at that point was just to throw out the safe schools
because I didn't need to be safe anymore.
Then from the schools that were left, you know, like I said I'm a swimmer,
I went on a trip to each of the schools and visited the swim team
and it was really nice because I spent the whole weekend with the swim team, got to really know people,
really had an in-depth visit with people there. So when I went to Princeton,
It was like I was invisible the whole weekend, no one spoke to me all weekend
and finally one swimmer said to me 'Wow, your really quiet'
and I responded: 'Well, because no one talked to me...'
So...if no one's going to talk to me that's not the school for me, obviously.
so that eliminated that school. And then when I went to Harvard,
it was a very different experience because it's a really diverse student population there,
and you know, also Princeton I went and visited, but then it's kind of a big social scene there,
and it seems like it's kind of homogeneous
where as the diversity of Harvard appealed to me.
Everyone was from such different backgrounds, there wasn't the cliquishness,
and also my whole visit people were interacting with me.
They were engaging me, they were talking to me, they were interested in me
and I was interested in them.
Now, Harvard's in Boston and there is a big deaf community there, so even if i'm one of the only deaf students at Harvard
I'm certainly not the only deaf person in Boston.
So that helped me narrow it down at that point to Harvard and Wesleyan.
So I asked for interpreting services for open house at both those schools,
and at Wesleyan they said 'Well, we can't get an interpreter for the open house'
and Harvard had plenty of interpreters so I just felt like 'Okay, that's it. I don't have to fight for access'
It was basically decided for me, and it also met my three criteria:
there was deaf community, great academics, and the swim team was very fun
and it was division one on top of it, so it was fine.
The other aspect of that was there are no athletic scholarships at Harvard
so I didn't have the pressure of my athletics paying for my school, so no pressure.
Of course, that was a really nice feature, just to swim for enjoyment.
so in the end, that's how I picked Harvard.
Now, how I picked the University of Washington is another story.
At that time, I had decided that I definitely wanted to major in biological oceanography
and there were three top schools for oceanography:
University of Washington, Scripps Institute, which is part the University of California, San Diego,
and then the other school that I was interested in was Woods Hole, which is part of MIT.
Understand, my bachelor's degree was environmental science, not biology
so I had not taken all of the required biology classes for a degree in biology.
Some programs require the biology GRE and I hadn't taken all the courses that would prepare me for that.
Of the three top schools, only Woods Hole required the biological GRE
so I eliminated that right away so that left the other two.
Jonathan: Oh, so the other two didn't require it.
Caroline: No, not at all. Neither one. So I applied to both, I did not get into Scripps,
but I did get into the University of Washington, so I went there.
There are a lot of other programs on the east coast that I didn't go to,
and let me just talk about that for a minute. On the west coast,
the schools of oceanography are generally right on the main campus.
At the University of Washington it's right on campus, and same at University of California.
On the east coast however, the oceanography programs are usually at a distance from the main campus,
so the oceanography school at University of Maryland, for instance, is about two hours away.
So that has a great impact on the availability of interpreting services.
If the oceanography lab is two hours away, how am I going to get interpreters that far away from the main campus?
So, that had a big impact on me. I knew I definitely want to be in a west coast school
where interpreters were going to be on the same campus where I needed them.
Yeah, so I definitely looked for schools where interpreters and the oceanography school was on the main campus.
I knew that's what I needed. Jonathan: Sure, sure, that makes sense.
Caroline: It's kind of like when I was looking for schools, you know, to apply to, I went to visit some schools,
and I went in and I asked to go see somebody in the office of disability services
just to get a sense of what kind of services they have, and at one school the first thing
the director of Disability Services said to me was: 'do you know how expensive interpreters are?'
Jonathan: You're kidding. Caroline: No. It was the very first question
so obviously I don't want to go to that school. I would also often talk to students who were there at the school
and asked what the services were like, and ask them if they thought it was a good idea to come there.
One school that I really love is Brown. I mean I'm a fan of Brown's. I love liberal arts, I love their approach,
I love everything about Brown practically, and I asked some of the students there and they said I have to warn you about Brown.
It's in Providence, Rhode Island and most of the interpreters are in Boston. It's two hours away
and it's really hard to get interpreting services sometimes at Brown. My mom saw the whole conversation too
and it just ruled Brown out for me. Jonathan: So end of discussion.
Caroline: Exactly. No interpreters, I can't go there. It's funny. While I was at Harvard,
several times I thought I could have gone to Brown, but it wouldn't have worked for me.
So that is a key component in my decision making was do I have access to interpreter services
because my point of view is I have enough on my plate as a college student without worrying about fighting for access
or fighting for interpreting services. Jonathan: Absolutely.
Caroline: And the interpreter coordinator at University of Washington was great.
Like every Friday we had these, you know, basically kegger parties with the professors and students
and they provided me with an interpreter for even that. It was really nice.
The thing was, after three years of rain I decided it wasn't for me, so I decided to leave with my master's degree.
I was in a PhD program but I decided not to finish there. I just left with the Masters because I wasn't happy.
It meant that something needed to change. Jonathan: It just wasn't worth continuing.
Caroline: Right, so a change was needed of some kind. At that time I was thinking about my options,
like what what was next for me, and really at the end of my time at University of Washington I was pretty down.
I was thinking maybe I'm not even meant to be a scientist? Maybe I should do something else altogether?
Jonathan: This is what you were thinking? Why? Caroline: Yeah, like maybe I should just leave the sciences.
Jonathan: Because of the weather? Caroline: I hate to say it, but it really was the rain that got to me.
You know, also though, I was at Harvard for four years in a very competitive environment.
People from there, from my cohort, went on to UC Berkeley and places like that. These are very smart people,
very capable people, and they kept up, they continued on in other competitive environments, but that competition for me,
I just felt like I had had enough of it and I was ready to learn for the sake of learning,
and I was looking for a more relaxed environment at that point, I had had enough years of the competition.
For University of Washington, one of the requirements there was that you had to TA, be a teachers assistant in classes
and my committee, I went to them and said: 'Would be possible for me to do my TA work at Gallaudet?'
And of course they said yes, because I'm deaf and it made sense for me to go to a deaf university and TA there.
So they bought it. Jonathan: Good, good.
Caroline: Yeah, so I went for a quarter to Gallaudet. And at the same time, I talked with deaf professors there
and I just loved it. I loved it, I wanted to be there, I wanted to stay there.
At the same time there had been a woman at the University of Maryland
and that woman had wanted me to go for my graduate studies there, but I was thinking at the time
I had already been on the East Coast. I wanted to go somewhere different.
That was too close to home for me. So I went back to that woman with my tail between my legs and said:
'Hey, what do you think about having me back? I would like to come back.'
And she was very happy to have me back, she said sure. So I went back there as a student
and finished my degree at the University of Maryland. It was really good for me because, you know, I had...they offer a PhD there,
it was nice, but then I had the deaf world at Gallaudet and I was able to alternate between the two worlds.
I had the intellectual stimulation of the University of Maryland and the satisfaction of the deaf world at Gallaudet
and it was funny because at Gallaudet I was a teacher and at the University of Maryland I was a student
so it was kind of this weird thing where I went back and forth between these two roles but it was good for me.
I will say that that the students at the University of Maryland are not of the same caliber as UW students.
at University of Washington they're doing cutting-edge research and, you know, at University of Maryland people are saying things like:
'Well, I'm finding some interesting things in the Chesapeake Bay'. So it's just not of the same caliber
but I felt good. It was local, yes, but it was relaxed and it felt good to me.
The students were friendlier, they were low-key, it was just more pleasant. It was nice to have that kind of environment
It was a good environment to learn in. So I finished at University Maryland
and that's my little journey through my education. Jonathan: Wow!
Caroline: Yeah, it truly was a journey. Jonathan: And it still continues, right?
Caroline: Absolutely.