By: Kayla Alamilla Blog #1: How an English Major is Helping Sharks
Hi MISS members and fans! My name is Kayla, and I am currently an intern at Minorities in Shark Sciences. I am a student at my local two-year institution with plans to transfer to an English program at a four-year university next year. As a MISS intern, I mainly help with content writing while working on my independent research on sharks, language, and local media. For as long as I can recall, my one true aspiration has been to become a writer. As a kid, I spent all my free time writing stories and poems and even won several regional creative writing competitions. However, when it was time to pick a college major, I swayed back and forth between wanting to be a writer and wanting to pursue a career in environmental science. The latter felt like an adequate choice of major, considering my love for the natural world, especially animals. In fact, in between writing stories in my childhood, I had another dream of becoming a marine mammal veterinarian! In my first year of college, I dove into courses like Biology and Field Biology, hoping to learn more about marine and wetland ecosystems, the environments I fell in love with while growing up in Southwest Florida. Although I gained tremendous experience and knowledge from those courses, I didn’t experience the same joy as I did in my literature class, dissecting William Blake’s “The Tyger” and exploring the symbolism of predation (nerdy, I know). However, my literature course made me realize I enjoy looking at the environment and animals from a humanities perspective. I am specifically interested in misunderstood predators (like sharks!) and their portrayal and significance in literature, folklore, and popular media. These creatures not only play a vital role in the health of an ecosystem, but they also hold cultural importance and, therefore, must be preserved and protected through community-centered conservation. By exploring my likes and dislikes, I found a path that authentically aligns with my passions and interests. As an English major at MISS, I am learning how language and science communication can impact shark conservation. I am also able to contribute to fun content (hello, Shark Madness!) to create engagement with supporters (like you!) while framing sharks in a positive light. In the future, I would like to continue writing content for science-based organizations like MISS while pursuing research around animal and literary studies and publishing a book of poems or essays one day! Ultimately, it is essential to let your intuition guide you. You can definitely be a person in STEM and a writer (for instance, MISS’ CEO Jasmin Graham is a shark scientist AND a published author!). However, from my personal experience, I probably wouldn’t have found my tailored niche without exploring different options and embracing my unique interests. Whether you are devoted to writing, visual arts, robotics, engineering, cinematography, public policy, fashion, or anything beyond biology, there is still a place for you in the marine sciences—you just gotta be creative! I included some articles discussing creativity, writing, and ocean conservation. Be sure to check them out for more inspiration! Marine Jobs Can Be Creative, Too! | Careers with STEM Uniting Creativity with Ocean Conservation | Conservation Career To STEM or to Communicate Science | Women in Ocean Science Best Fishes! Kayla 𓇼
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By: Kayla Alamilla 2024 Spring Intern Sharks and Stanzas! Celebrating National Poetry Month at MISS with Creative Field Notes  Creative Field Note Prompt #1
Write a poem from the point of view of a shark. The poems I found during my research included many poems from a person’s point of view witnessing and describing a shark encounter. Most of these poems included words such as “dark,” “blood,” “horrible” and “man-eater,” and focused on the emotions of a human subject. We can use poetry to think outside the box, including writing from the perspective of another subject. Write a poem from the perspective of a shark. How do they view the humans staring at them? Or, you can go on an entirely amusing route and write from the perspective of a particular species. What is it like to see the ocean world from the eyes of a hammerhead? What is it like to be small like a cookiecutter shark? Creative Field Note Prompt #2 Write a poem using sharks as a positive metaphor. Sharks are often portrayed using words like “aggressive” and “menacing”. In my research, I came across poems using sharks as “lurking” imagery to create a sense of uneasiness. In the words of the Academy of American Poets, “poems that incorporate sharks often leave them almost entirely out of sight, emphasizing the possibility of an encounter rather than presenting the animal itself.” As shark scientists, we have a unique on-hands experience with sharks. Though sharks can be mysterious in many ways (for example, a live newborn great white shark has never been seen up until this year!), their elusiveness does not have to equate to fear. Instead, it can be a chance to use sharks as a way to describe fascination. Write a poem to compare sharks to something else you find fascinating. Creative Field Note Prompt #3 Write a poem using sharks as a symbol for change. In a couple poems I read, the predator nature of sharks were used as symbols for oppression and injustice. There were poems who used the analogy of fishes in a sea of sharks to describe an imbalanced society, with the sharks representing a scary group who unfairly overrules the ocean. However, when I think about sharks, I think about the way sharks are misunderstood and vilified just for their existence and instinct of survival. I can’t help but empathize with them, especially when reflecting on the times I have felt discredited and unwelcomed in spaces as a gender minority of color. So, what if sharks were symbols of freedom, equality, change, or liberation? Write a poem about what it’s like to establish your presence in a space in spite of the sidelines saying otherwise. – I hope you all enjoy having fun with these prompts and interpreting it in your own unique way! If you plan on publishing it on your social media, please feel free to tag MISS @MISS_Elasmo! |
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About missMISS provides a community and funded opportunities for gender minorities of color who wish to enter the field of shark sciences. We aim to show that there are many gender minorities of color succeeding in and interested in this field.
We fundraise and apply for grants to create paid opportunities to attempt to knock down the financial barrier into shark sciences. We encourage other organizations in our field to do the same. |
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