Caroline: I'm interning
for the summer
 with Reef Relief in Key West.
   Coral bleaching
   is a serious issue
 and the whole purpose
 of Reef Relief
 is just to try to get
 the word out there
 and show people that
 we can stop the damage
if we do something about it now.
   I got the job in Key West
   by excessively emailing.
   I emailed a couple people
   with Ocean Conservancy,
 and they didn't have
 a position available.
   I had a conversation with
   her and she liked me,
 so when she saw the
 internship posted in Key West,
 she sent me an email and said,
 "You should check
 this one out as well."
  I studied abroad in
  the Turks and Caicos
   my junior year with the
   School for Field Studies.
 I found it through
 College of Charleston,
  and it was a marine
  science program.
   We went out and we
   caught the sharks,
   took DNA samples,
   took fin clips,
 tagged them and released them.
I never thought that I would be
   so close to these animals.
  I was holding, like,
  six sharks a day.
   I got into sharks through
   that and I was asking,
  and people mentioned
  Gavin Naylor.
   The research that
   Gavin's doing is
   basically the evolutionary
   tree of sharks and rays.
As a student researcher,
I get little bits
   of shark skin, or
   liver, or fins,
and I extract the DNA from that
 and then I run a PCR.
  I'm prepared for the
  job that I'm doing
  with the Conservation Group,
as well as a lot
of other things.
 I've done lab work,
 I've done field work,
 and that's all thanks
 to the opportunities
 given to me by the
 College of Charleston.
  [cheery music plays]
