Meet another one of COLSA’s 2019 SOAR Fund recipients, Timothy Readdean ’19, a marine, estuarine and freshwater biology and sustainability double major from Albany, New York. Timothy used the stipend he received from the SOAR Fund to take an unpaid summer internship at the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut.
Tim Readdean: I spent the past summer as a husbandry intern at the Mystic Aquarium, in Mystic, Connecticut. I worked one-on-one with aquarists in the fish and invertebrates department, where I assisted them in daily activities while they taught me everything about their job and the animals that we worked with.
I also got many opportunities to talk to and educate the public, which gave me the experience of interacting professionally with people and actively inspiring them to care for and protect our ocean planet.
Tim: I loved the internship’s hands-on and experiential-learning focus.
Tim: I'm proud of everything that I learned, about being an aquarist, about the marine life I worked with, and about myself. I gained extensive knowledge on husbandry practices for marine animals, and I learned things about how I work professionally and that I can do a lot if I set my mind to it.
Tim: The most valuable thing I learned was how to take the knowledge I've gained in the classroom and apply it to situations within an aquarium setting. By using things I've learned at UNH I was able to find solutions to problems that I encountered at work every day.
Tim: The ability to extend my learning to a professional environment has made me a much more well-rounded student. I was able to put the information I’ve learned at UNH into a real-world scenario, and I got to do so while helping teach the public about marine life.
Tim: Look in different fields, not just what you think you want to do. I always assumed I would end up in a research position after college, but now I am seriously considering a more husbandry-based job. Look for things that may be out of your comfort zone, you never know what you will learn!
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