by Sara Casareto

It all started my freshman year when I hesitantly sat down in an office down at Baltimore’s Inner harbor and decided to teach my interviewer about snakes. Two months, an ID picture, and a blue shirt later, I was all suited up and ready for my first gig. Doing what you may ask? Well, to be frank I had gotten all dressed up to talk about fish. To hundreds of people. Every week.

That summer at the Baltimore Aquarium got me hooked onto a high that I’d never experienced before. Learning about fish became an addiction. Teaching people about the oceans became my craving. Sharks became as cute as puppies, I got excited whenever we talked about dinoflagellates (Marine plankton) in class. I started scuba diving every chance I got, I even started helping out with the scuba classes. Biology puns made me laugh harder than Jimmy Fallon ever did.

I continued that internship throughout my four years at Sherwood, making friends who were just as obsessed with NaCl water as I was. The biggest plot twist for me was realizing that I could actually do this as a career. It has been four years since I first donned that blue polo, and I’m about to embark on a new journey involving a double major in Biology and Marine Science. I almost didn’t apply for that internship. I can be certain that without the bubble tubes that greet visitors when they walk into the aquarium, and without the ramps that spiral past the artificial reefs, my ambitions would have led me on a different route all together.