The Beginning of the End

By Rachel Kaplan, PhD candidate, Oregon State University College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

I moved to Corvallis exactly four years ago, in the deep, dark midst of the Covid pandemic, and during the added chaos of the 2020 Labor Day Fires, some of the worst in Oregon’s history. I vividly remember attending our virtual lab meeting sitting on the floor surrounded by boxes, while my labmates told me their own stories (many, surprisingly!) of moving during natural disasters. At the time, beginning graduate school represented so many big changes in my life: I had quit my job, sold my furniture, and moved across the country, hoping to explore an area of research that had been calling to me for years, and to gain a new skillset and confidence.

Now, I’m starting the fifth year of my PhD, thinking about all that has happened and all that is to come. Graduate school is full of milestones to mark time and progress: I’ve taken the courses required for my program, sat for a written exam to test my broad knowledge of oceanography, and written a dissertation proposal. Earlier this year, I spent two months buried in the literature on oceanography, krill, and whale ecology in preparation for my oral qualifying exam. I’ve stared at the water for dozens of hours watching for whales off the Oregon coast, and experienced polar night studying winter krill in Antarctica. I’ve conquered my fear of learning to code, and felt constant, profound gratitude for the amazing people I get to work with.

The last four years have been incredibly busy and active, but now more than ever, it feels like the time to really do. I can see the analytical steps ahead for my final two dissertation chapters more clearly than I’ve been able to see either of the other two chapters that have come before. One of my favorite parts of the process of research is discussing analytical decisions with my labmates and supervisors, and experiencing how their brains work. Much of our work hinges on modeling relationships between animals and their environment. A model, most fundamentally, is a reduced-scale representation of a system. As I’ve learned to use statistical models to understand relationships between krill and whales, I have simultaneously been building a mental model of the Northern California Current (NCC) ecosystem and the ecological relationships within it. Just as I have long admired in my supervisors and labmates, I can now feel my own mind becoming more playful as I think about this ocean environment, the whales and krill that make a living in the NCC, and the best way to approach studying them analytically.

Graduate school demands that you learn and work to constantly exceed your own bounds, and pushing to that extent for years is often stressful and even existentially threatening. However, this process is also beautiful. I have spent the last four years growing in the ways that I’ve long wanted to, and reveled in feeling my mind learn to play. I wouldn’t give up a moment of the time I’ve spent in the field, the relationships I’ve built with my labmates, or the confidence I’ve developed along the way.

As I look ahead to this next, final, year of graduate school, I hope to use what I’ve learned every day – and not just about how to conduct research, but about myself. I want to always remember that krill, whales, and the ocean ecosystem are incredible, and that it is a privilege to study them. I hope to work calmly and intentionally, and to continue appreciating this process of research and growth.