Eve Butler '25 spent time in the Bahamas last summer on vacation with her family. She spent her days snorkeling and enjoying, well, absolutely everything. She enjoyed it so much, in fact, she turned paradise into her classroom.
Wednesday is Eve's new favorite day of the week. She's abroad in Turks and Caicos for the spring, enrolled in Marine Resource Studies through The School for Field Studies. Four out of five weekdays are spent in the classroom learning the basics of marine biology. On Wednesday, though, they experience marine biology.
"My mom keeps texting me and telling me how jealous she is."
Wednesdays (and Saturdays) are waterfront days. The students, who are mostly from American colleges, snorkel and scuba dive as a group. Eve has nearly earned her scuba license, and will be exploring in deeper waters soon. On her most recent waterfront day, Eve swam with a southern stingray and was up close with a sea star.
Eve is a biology major, but for a long time, she wasn't sure which area of biology she wanted to explore. Her passion for marine life was born out of last summer's trip to the Bahamas, and though Siena doesn't have a marine biology track, the Study Abroad office pointed her toward several programs that specialize in the science.
"There's a program in Australia that focus on the rainforest. But that was a little further away than I wanted to travel. This program ended up being exactly what I was looking for."
Eve hopes to pursue a career in marine research, and she couldn't image a better start to that education. In marine ecology class one day last week, the students were given a list of sea creatures they had to identify, and then they went out into the ocean on their scavenger hunt. They had to find algae, seagrass, sea urchins, and all sorts of fish all in their natural habitat.
Meanwhile, 80 degrees in February is not a native-New Yorker's natural habitat, but Eve is adjusting just fine. The only catch: she has to be conscious of how many pictures she's sending to family and friends. The jealousy is real.
