Baylor Interdisciplinary Core

Article by Sam Watson, current BIC student

Day one on the job. Early morning fog drifts across glassy water. The sun beams weakly through a cloud, enough to provide a breathtaking sunrise… the beauty of which is somewhat lost upon me, as I am only one cup of coffee into my required three. I sip slowly at cup number two as the boat rumbles its way towards the start of the day’s work, the grogginess fading in the face of the wind’s cool bite.

We arrive at where we’ll start transecting for the day and my partner [Will Bostwick] and I clamber up onto a small wooden platform built around the ship’s mast, hook ourselves in (safety first, kids), and begin sweeping the water with our binoculars. We’re looking for seabirds, small marine mammals, and, the big one: any sign of a whale.

Less than twenty minutes later, such a sign appears, hanging above the water like an ethereal spirit- a whale’s blow. I suppress my excitement as we call it back to the captain, a Ph.D candidate at Scripps Institute named Eric Keen, and he decides to execute a focal follow on this particular humpback after entering the data we gave him. [Will] explains to me this means we’ll break off from the transect and attempt to get an identification shot on the whale with our high powered cameras. Essentially, we’ll wait for the whale to dive and its fluke to rise out of the water. Each humpback’s fluke has distinctive markings we match to a photo database to identify it.

As we approach the behemoth, all I can see of its actual body is a low, dark grey line of flesh that rises up into the characteristic hump and dorsal fin. We’re still about three hundred meters out, so I wasn’t expecting to get a good view, but I’m still slightly disappointed. I’d heard so much about how charismatic and majestic these creatures were; was this all I’d see of them for the next month?

The whale blows several more times, moving calmly along the sheer granite shore of the channel, and we get within 100 meters. I’m more impressed with it now, but even so…

Then the back of the beast arches high above the water, looking for all the world like a prehistoric sea serpent, and a fluke, the width of which is nearly three times my height, rises straight up. The whole thing slips beneath the water with barely a sound, and all I can think is, “oh.”

This is life on the Bangarang, a 37-foot sailboat. You wake up, you drink coffee, and for approximately the next eight hours, you constantly see the most beautiful creatures on earth in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Life while you’re in the Bangarang’s care, needless to say, is amazing. Named after the Lost Boys’ cry of jubilation in the movie Hook, she carries you to sights you never thought you’d see.

She carried me to witness the famed bubble net feeding of the humpbacks, another event that’s nigh indescribable. There’s a group in the Great Bear Sea that’s returned, year after year, to meet up in the most spectacular feeding frenzy the natural world has to offer. The same whales, for over ten years, join underwater, one whale leading the others with haunting songs. They begin to circle a school of fish, slowly releasing bubbles and rising up towards the surface. If you’re lucky enough to have a hydrophone in the water, you can hear the slight changes in tone, pitch, and sound as the whales move, the hiss of bubbles, and then… Then you hear the calling whale deepen its voice, and you can tell they’re getting much higher much faster. You have around two seconds to prepare yourself, and then ten huge mammals are erupting out of the water, massive mouths wide open. The combination of their beautiful song and the sheer size and intelligence of the creatures, all spectacularly on display, was overwhelming.

This is, to some extent, what the BIC can prepare you for, if you give it the opportunity. On the surface, ecological field research and what you’ll be learning over the next four years have little to do with each other. But the surface only shows so much. When you see a whale on the surface, you can only see its back. Stick around long enough, however, and you may see something spectacular- a beautiful fluke, a pectoral fin, a breach, or maybe even bubble net feeding.

The BIC, on the surface, is difficult. The class load is heavy, the workload intense, and the teachers hold you to high standards; but what you’ll learn is worth it all. My time on the boat required attention and analysis. Ecology – particularly when whales are involved, because there’s so much we don’t know about them- asks of the scientist silence. You must sit, be still, and listen to what the ecosystem is telling you. You have to wait for the whales to sing. Let the BIC teach you to listen.

Sam Watson is a senior BIC student in the university scholars major.

Photo:  A humpback whale named Coste, preparing to dive on my first full day; ©Eric Keen

Article by Lee Shaw, current BIC student

As a professional writing major, I have signed on to be a literary mercenary in my future, to tackle every proposed composition yet un-scribbled, to eradicate every to be verb yet to be, and keep my MLA guidebook at my side like King James himself had orchestrated its assembly. When I am asked “What exactly is Professional Writing?,” I will usually spout the simple “An English major on steroids” (which truly speaks volumes as an English major is quite difficult in its own right). When I am asked “What do you do with a professional writing major?,” with respect to time, I might simply say that I could be an editor, an author, and publisher among many more careers. The truth, however, that my options for the future are practically limitless, would just take too long to explain. Although modern society becomes increasingly digitized every day, the demand for talented writers will survive, no matter the industry. Over the course of the summer I added one more potential career path to my growing list, namely copywriting.

This summer I worked for an advertising firm in Fort Worth, Texas called Pavlov. Named after the famed scientist, this agency aims to stimulate response from the general public that mirrors the desires of the client. Within the advertising field, any text present on an advertisement comprises the ad’s “copy.” As a copywriter, perhaps needless to say, I wrote anything from “Call 1-800-YOWATUP for more information” to radio and TV commercial scripts, and even the occasional brand slogan.

Although Pavlov did not exactly reflect my Mad Men inspired fantasies (only one person smoked and – if there were ever any alcohol present during the work day – it was tactfully hidden from me), I do not think I have ever learned so much in such a short time. While I cannot talk (or write) about the projects that I participated in during my time at Pavlov, I can divulge the inner workings of an ad agency. (That’s right, the moment you’ve been waiting for.) After a client hires the agency, the account director determines exactly what the client desires and relays the information to the creative director, who I answered to directly. With every new project, the creative director would assign each of us in the creative department to brainstorm. This process pushed me to my literary limits, trying to encapsulate an entire company, an entire legacy within a two-word phrase. More often than not, I would come up with dozens upon dozens for a single project – often no more than ten would make it through. Yet this process never involved personal jabs, insults, or tense emotions. Advertising, as I have come to understand it, consists of facts – some things work, other things don’t. This process would repeat over and over until we decided on an idea and presented it to the client, just to start all over again the next day with a new project.

Some days I would spend six hours straight just trying to find the perfect pun to satisfy a client. Other days I would spend an entire day on one 30-second radio script, trying to formulate that perfect message, that perfect use of such a short amount of time. Advertising truly is an art.

As a Professional Writing major, writing lies in my bones. MLA runs as deep as my marrow. My handwriting mirrors that of a toddler, but so does my incorruptible passion for expressing myself through ink and experience. Advertising, a ten-character Twitter post that lasts forever, a story where the letters are the characters who have 2 seconds to grab your attention, constitutes just one form of the art that we call writing. I am truly grateful for this opportunity to expand my skills and hope that other students are so lucky to receive equally beneficial experiences.

Lee Shaw is a sophomore BIC student majoring in professional writing.