Today, Sara Wong will cross the Dalhousie Arts Centre stage as a member of the Class of 2023, but it’s a milestone that should have happened months ago.
A concussion suffered in the winter term of her fourth year derailed Sara’s plans to graduate in May and forced her to devote the summer months to finishing the courses necessary to complete her Bachelor of Science in Ocean Sciences (Honours) with a Minor in Chemistry.
“Concussions are really isolating injuries,” Sara says. “They aren’t talked about a lot and people don’t know much about them, but you just feel really helpless.” She says that she would sometimes try to ignore her symptoms (“It’s been so long, I’m sure it’s gone now”) until a headache would inevitably get the best of her.
A member of both the Black and Gold Dance Team and the DalDance Society, physical activity had to be put on hold along with her academics as she dealt with her concussion. Now feeling back to normal, Sara was able to push to complete her degree requirements over the summer but remains disappointed at missing out on the chance to graduate alongside her peers last spring. While grateful for the compassion shown by her professors, Sara admits that her final term was a struggle.
“I felt like I had lost all my momentum,” she says. “All of a sudden, all of my classmates and everyone that I had gone through my degree with had graduated and I still hadn’t.”
Sara Wong gets into a dancer’s pose on the Dalhousie University campus (Alexis Belliveau photo).
Feeling at home while at sea
Born and raised in Oakville, Ontario, Sara knew she wanted to study marine biology, but figured she would do so at a university closer to home. Her mother, a Dal alum (Susan Joy Shaw, BScPh’91), advised her to consider Halifax.
After a year spent in the Integrated Science program, Sara found herself gravitating toward ocean sciences rather than marine biology. “I realized that I really liked math, chemistry, and physics beyond just biology,” she says. “I thought that if I wanted to study the ocean, my only option was marine biology, but oceanography is much more interdisciplinary and uses more of my other strengths and interests.”
Sara pursued honours research with Dr. Doug Wallace’s CERC.OCEAN research group, where she studied the exchange of CO2 between the air and the sea. Having spent time in the lab working with samples of alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon, Sara also had the opportunity to spend some time at sea with members of the research team gathering those samples and conducting experiments, starting out with a three-day voyage before building up toward a longer trip through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to release a tracer.
Aside from putting into practice some of the skills gained in the classroom, being at sea represented a welcome diversion from the occasionally hectic life on land. “We didn’t have any cell service or Wi-Fi on the boat, so it was a nice break,” Sara says, noting that she observed several beautiful sunsets and also managed to avoid seasickness.
Taking time to relax
Sara says she wants to pursue graduate studies in chemical oceanography but will take a year off before making any firm plans. “I’m open to anything that allows me to continue researching and doing hands-on work as well as data analysis,” she says.
For now, she plans to travel, with a hiking trip to the Chilean Patagonia planned for later in the month.
In the more distant future, Sara has November 2024 firmly circled on her calendar. After a few missed opportunities, she managed to secure tickets to one of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concerts in Toronto.
“It was a mess,” she says, describing the process of waiting in virtual queues and hunting for pre-sale codes in hopes of buying the coveted tickets.
You might say that after a cruel summer, everything has changed as Sara embraces what’s next in her life as a Dal graduate.
Sara Wong with the crew onboard a CERC.OCEAN research cruise (Joerg Behnke photo).
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