For Duke Kunshan student Rujia Yang, a semester-long trip to Duke University’s marine lab last year was a combination of nerve-wracking, exciting, fascinating and also familiar, that helped solidify ideas about her future.
Yang in front of the Duke marine lab sign
The environmental science and public policy student overcame the struggles of travelling abroad alone for the first time, to leave with both a new sense of confidence and plans to study small scale fisheries, a feature of both her hometown in China and the communities near the lab, which sits midway down the U.S. east coast.
Yang (center) shows fellow students at tunicate (an invertebrate marine animal)
“Before going there I felt like I couldn’t handle everything involved at the same time by myself, but after this experience I am totally confident and comfortable because now I know that I can do it,” she said.
Yang had a love for the ocean growing up. From Yantai, a coastal city in northern China’s Shandong province, her parents often took her to the seafront where she would explore the rocky beaches looking for crabs and other life, or watch the fishing boats bringing in their catch. She also liked to watch documentaries about the ocean, to understand what was beneath the vast expanse of water on her doorstep.
At ten years old Yang’s idyllic coastline was hit with a major oil spill that killed off swathes of marine life along the beach and had a deep impact on her. It was an event that would force her to think about marine protection and was the catalyst to her eventually studying environmental science and public policy at Duke Kunshan.
Duke Kunshan was founded by Duke University in the United States and China’s Wuhan University. Each year some DKU students choose to study for a semester at Duke. The majority end up on Duke’s main campus in Durham, North Carolina, but Yang chose to go to the university’s marine lab.
The marine lab trip was both Yang’s first time travelling abroad alone and in the United States. She was “nervous, but actually more excited,” she said, as she had thought about visiting Dukes marine lab since her freshmen year.
Arrival at the lab, which is about a three-hour drive from Duke University’s main campus, was like a homecoming of sorts, said Yang, because of the ocean and fishing communities nearby.
“It is quite similar to my hometown, although not exactly the same, and I felt this sense of familiarity,” she said.
There were some difficulties, with language (she was not familiar with the names of local sea life), food, and finding her way around, but she soon settled into life at the lab where she enjoyed the many field trips, including one to witness a whale necroscopy, learning from the professors and PhD students, and taking part in projects, such as investigating biodiversity around a nearby dock.
Outside of studies she found the natural setting of the campus an ideal place to “relax,” she said.
Sunset along the coast near the Duke marine lab
“I feel like the marine lab is really a place about nature, so when there was no class, I would just spend a long time sitting by the seaside. Sometimes I could see dolphins swimming in the ocean nearby,” she said.
A project looking at small scale fisheries had a deep impact on Yang. That, combined with observing the local fishing communities and reflections on her hometown, helped her formulate a plan for her future, to study small scale fishing.
Harvey W. Smith Professor of Biological Oceanography Cindy van Dover, with Yang and other marine lab students during a field trip
“I built a connection between the marine lab and experiences in my hometown,” she said.
“They are both coastal cities, just one in the U.S. and one in China. I could see their similarities and see their differences, and developed an idea about the things I could do or study back home,” she said.
The trip was a special experience filled with many good memories, including an interesting encounter with an octopus that was kept at a nearby community college.
“I’ve read a lot of stories about octopuses and how they can interact with people and are super intelligent,” she said.
The octopus began to communicate by, “waving his tentacles at me and trying to ask me for food,” she said. “It was kind of like a dream come true moment for me.”
A giant octopus at Carteret County Community College that Yang encountered during a field trip
Yang is now back in China, at the Duke Kunshan campus, but has long term plans to “definitely go back” to the marine lab.
“There are still new opportunities I can try there, so before I left the marine lab I made the decision that I would go back some day, maybe as a master’s student, maybe to do a PhD,” she said.
“I think my time there was really useful, because it helped me to decide on the things that I want to do in the future.”
