Working With Whales: A Dream Come True for Jade-Audrey

I began my post-secondary studies in visual arts and then switched to psychology at university. But toward the end of my bachelor’s, I started to question my path; I was hesitant. I had devoted so much time and energy to psychology, did I really want to start all over again? Ultimately, the answer was yes. There was a forgotten little girl’s dream that I began to revisit, and that’s when I decided to enrol in a bachelor’s program in biology!

The first time I saw a whale, I was 7 years old; it was a St. Lawrence beluga. I then began yelling to my mother and grandmother: “Whales, I want to see whales!” And I wanted to live in Tadoussac where I would have the chance to observe them every day. A few years later, I told my mother I wanted to help and work with cetaceans. But how? I didn’t really know yet, as I was just 10 or 11 years old and wasn’t very familiar with the concept of conservation.

Before undertaking my studies in biology, I returned to Tadoussac. It didn’t take long to convince myself that I had to get my bachelor’s degree in biology to be able to make my dream come true and turn my passion into a livelihood.

I would say being myself, because sometimes I put a lot of pressure on myself. It’s ridiculous, but I’ll sometimes proofread an email five times before sending it to make sure I don’t come across as unintelligent, cold, or overly forward. Research has shown that women put pressure on themselves to be perfect. We want to find our niche, but at the same time, we don’t want to be invasive. One study even showed that women apply for a job when they have around 90-100% of the required skills, while for men this figure is much lower. Sometimes I wish I had that confidence, that I could write an email and not care whether or not I added an emoji.

Living in a remote region also brings its lot of challenges, especially in winter. Here, in winter, there are no whales, so my brain is like, “But what are you doing here if there are no whales?” It’s quite challenging to be passionate about something and not be able to practise that passion year-round.

Working in science requires scientific rigour and compliance with precise, detailed protocols, much like following a recipe. This means that the required professional qualities are independent of a person’s gender. Women have just as much their place as men and vice versa.

If you’re a woman and you’re curious about research, if you ask questions, if you like fiddling around with databases and doing analyses… then perhaps a career in science is for you! I realize it can be difficult to enter into a typically male-dominated environment, because sometimes we feel like we have to prove that we belong just as much as the others, but at the same time, we must not let these fears stand in our way. It’s not the fact that we are women that’s disturbing, it’s the fact that it represents a change. For the presence of women to become the new norm, more women need to choose scientific professions. This is why we need this diversity, so that this field is made up of lots of different people.