I dropped out of high school. Now, I’m living my dream as a fish scientist

From ScienceMag:

It was just after lunchtime service in a restaurant. The heat was stifling and the air smelled of grease and strong detergent. I was standing on a stepladder and scrubbing the extractor hood, which had been blackened by cooking fumes. Despite my gloves and protective gear, the chemicals had caused superficial burns on my hands, and my face stung as sweat trickled down it. In that moment, I realized I couldn’t keep doing these kinds of jobs for the rest of my life. I needed a career I was passionate about—and my biggest passion was fish.

I’d been obsessed with fishing since I was young, when my older brother would take me to the Sorgue and the other wild rivers of southern France to catch trout. Fishing was a way for us to be together and to communicate without words. At first, I learned the basics, such as how to cast a line and how to approach fish without frightening them. Over time I became fascinated with the trout’s behavior, learning to predict where they might feed depending on water conditions and the season, for instance. But I never even entertained the notion that I might be able to make a career out of this interest.

I grew up in a large working class family; my mother was a cleaner, my father a house painter. In high school, my teachers said I wouldn’t make it, not even in vocational training, and my school counselors gave up on me. So I left school at 19, disillusioned and without a diploma.

For several years, I was an anonymous worker, sanding floors in shopping malls in the middle of the night, degreasing restaurant hoods, cleaning pest-infested kitchens. I took pride in doing difficult, invisible jobs—but something still stirred in me whenever I went fishing.

I was 24 when I began to feel I needed a change. Even if it meant starting from scratch, I decided I would turn my hobby into a career. Somehow, against the odds, I would become a fish scientist.

After completing a science-based diploma for adults, I started a biology degree at university, sustaining myself with money I had saved while working. My first semester was brutal. I failed physics, biostatistics, even introductory ecology. But I was determined to pursue my dream, and gradually my grades improved.

Eventually I got into a master’s program in ecological engineering and biodiversity management. During the first week, my supervisor handed me a paper on brown trout in the Kerguelen Islands. I was overjoyed. “They’re paying me to read salmonid research!” I told my parents that night. They were speechless. For the first time, I felt like I’d truly made it.

I credit the hours I spent cleaning kitchens for giving me the discipline, patience, precision, and endurance to push on as I struggled through those first years of studying. But my working class roots have also been an obstacle. In Ph.D. interviews, I faced questions about my age and my family situation that seemed inappropriate. I’ve even been told not to talk about my background when speaking with other researchers in the lab, as if it might discredit my science—even though I have the same degrees as my colleagues. It is hard enough to enter science from a background like mine, without the added stigma. No one should be made to feel inferior or that they do not belong in science because of their origins.

I’m now in the middle of a Ph.D. studying how climate change is affecting arctic char, a cold-water salmonid. I’ve hiked to more than a dozen alpine lakes, sometimes carrying 30 kilograms of gear. I’m living a dream, but I also know it took a lot of hard work to get here. Every day, I still feel the same desire to learn and improve.

The last time I visited an alpine lake, my brother joined me to help. We spent 2 days by the water, just like when we were kids. But this time, he saw me leading the work, managing the team, and taking responsibility. I had come full circle. Life had brought me back to where it all began, this time as a scientist, with a passion that had become my profession.

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