PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Seeking a calling in life doesn’t always mean starting with a specific job or vocation in mind. That’s true for rising Brown University sophomore Sophia Wu. She’s interested in science and engineering, but she’s not quite sure yet what her life’s work will be. There is, however, one thing she knows for sure: She’s called to the ocean.
“I like building and making things, which is why I’m interested in engineering,” said Wu, a Bridgewater, New Jersey, native. “But I’ve always been a big swimmer, and I just love the water. It’s part of me that I don't want to leave behind. Whatever I end up doing, it has to be something that keeps me near the ocean.”
So when Wu was looking for internship opportunities this summer and saw one available with Save the Bay, a Rhode Island nonprofit dedicated to protecting Narragansett Bay, she didn’t think twice. The internship was made possible through the SPRINT-iProv summer fellowship program, organized by Brown’s Swearer Center and Center for Career Exploration to connect undergraduates with full-time summer work in partnership with Providence-based nonprofits.
“It was perfect,” Wu said. “I could do something with the ocean and get paid to do it.”
Since late May, she’s been working as an aquarist and administrative intern. In her administrative role, she helps to make sure Save the Bay summer camps run smoothly. The organization hosts hundreds of K-12 students each summer, and Wu’s behind-the-scenes work in getting kids registered, organizing educational materials and managing medical forms helps camp educators focus on teaching kids about the bay. The campers will be the future stewards of Wu’s beloved oceans, so it’s important to her that they “leave with a positive impression of our bay and the ocean,” she said.
In her aquarist role, she tends the touch tanks at Save the Bay’s Providence headquarters, which give kids a chance to interact with live creatures from Narragansett Bay. The touch tanks have whelks, moon snails, mussels, hermit crabs and black-fingered mud crabs. Other tanks are home to horseshoe crabs and even a northern puffer fish named George. Wu’s work involves cleaning the tanks, feeding the animals and changing the water to maintain the ideal habitat for each creature.
“There’s a lot of unglamorous poop-scooping,” Wu said. “But the cool thing is that everything in the tank has been in the bay and will go back to the bay eventually.”
To maintain that rotating cast of aquatic characters, Wu joins other Save the Bay aquarists on trips to Colt State Park, where touch tank veterans are returned to the bay and new residents are collected. In the course of that work, Wu discovered a hidden talent she never knew she had.
