It was a late school night when I researched for any vacancies in Antarctica. To be precise I was procrastinating my Master’s project by looking up any fun jobs I could do when I will have (finally!) collected all my diplomas before running away a free woman into the world.
The job posting was for a young graduate veterinarian that likes to work in the field for one full year in Antarctica catching penguins; in other words the dream job. Sounded almost too good to be true; in fact I then spent the next month obsessively fretting about my letter and CV, having it proofread by my parents, colleagues and mentors all over the world (we’re talking France, Senegal, Germany). Without getting too much into the details I applied to six almost identical positions and I struggled to make the letters seem personalized. I resorted to emboldening all the specific key words, odd thing to do for a French letter which earned me quite some lighthearted teasing by my fellow penguin scientists.
After an atrocious month of waiting I finally got an answer! And a positive one mind you! The email started by “Dear May Li we are very interested by your profile”…and ended by “but we have already finished our selection, we want to interview you for the back-up position” [insert sad face]. After that first disappointment, I soon got about a week later, 3 other emails from the different positions asking for interviews.
The job interviews were entertaining (well as much as a stressful Zoom call for your dream job can be). The questions were quite basic at the start: recount a time you have overcome a difficulty? What is your teamwork experience? Leadership experience? If so, then what experience do you have with following?
The next few questions took me a bit more by surprise: Am I prepared for death or family drama knowing that I cannot leave Antarctica? What do I do if a penguin chick dies because of me? What about a second one? What are your moral and ethical limits? What do you do if at a party a drunk military or green activist accuses you of torturing penguins? Do you know what an IP address and a ping is?
I got the answers relatively quickly after; spoiler alert: I got the job. Would be a pretty boring blog if not. I was going to Dumont D’Urville for 14 months to collect data for project 137 that focuses on studying the physiology of Emperor and Adélie penguins. (Check the Q&A post for specific information)
The next step was to schedule the medical and psychological appointments. We’re talking complete medical check-ups: X-rays, EKGs, hearing test, sight test, blood and urine tests, etc. This was followed up by 3 hours of psychological test: 3 questionnaires about your life and personality, and then a one hour interview with a therapist. During that interview I basically recounted my whole life, from my best to my most traumatic moments. Any past relations, be they exs or friendships were examined in detail. All in all it was a tiring but not too bad of a moment – it’s very rarely that a whole day is dedicated only to you and your health.
If you are reading this blog to figure out more about the exams, just as I did for my tests, fret not. They are straightforward and easy to take – just trust yourself. Before taking the psychological tests I wanted to make sure not to mess up the opportunity of my lifetime, so I scoured multiple blogs as well as psychological papers. To my horror, I read that introverts are highly sought up – turns out I was worrying for nothing; from what I gathered our Antarctica team is a whole mix of different personalities all of whom share a common love for adventure and la vida loca.
