Clara Superbie is a PhD student in the McLoughlin lab in Population Ecology (University of Saskatchewan) where she works on understanding how caribou respond to predation pressure and resource availability in an environment largely dominated by wildfires. Clara grew up in France where she completed an undergrad in Biology at the University Paris-Saclay, and a master's degree in behavioural ecology at the University of Burgundy. We talk about undertaking PhDs as international students here in Canada, and that experience during a pandemic. We talk about scientists and expertise and where advocacy and expert opinion fit into science, and about the costs and relative pay-off we are hoping to see from undertaking this behemoth of a degree.