I need some help, please (Marine Biology)

[PADI Knight]

My daughter has been accepted at Coastal Carolina in their marine science program. We toured the campus and spent about 4 hours in the marine science program's offices even spent about an hour and a half with the department chair. I was impressed with their program especially since they encourage and use undergrads in the field actually conducting research which my daughter is interested in doing field research. She's interested in sharks and one of the faculty is currenlty running a shark study and spoke with us and she and he hit it off immediately he even hinted that she could go out and work on tagging some sharks in the fall and spring. Anyone else have any infor about Coastal?

 

[scuba_aqua_girl]

Thats really awesome! Wow thats what Im interested in is field research. I am also a shark and ray fanatic. Thanks for the info. Do you know what area Coastal Carolina is in South Carolina?

 

[ekremer]

an Underestimated school, but a good school none the less is Florida Atlantic University
its an idea to check out, it appears their B.S. in Biology has a focus in Marine Biology.
http://www.science.fau.edu/administration/undergrad/

 

[kenoo]

Each May the University of NC at WIlmington teaches a class on Scientific Diving. The Instructor is very experienced. It would be a great place to go and see if it is something you want to investigate further.

Contact me and I will give your more details.

 

[GeddyLee]

As a UNCW graduate who major'd in Biology, I'd second the recommendation. UNCW is not only a great all around college, but also regarded as one of the world's best marine biology programs. The location is fantastic as well...Wilmington is a great town with nice beaches and good diving.

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

drBill, you're the man. Phd in marine ecology must be a blast. Im just two short months away from my BA in biology. It's either vet school or marine bio after this! decisions decisions.

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

Go to University of Rhode Island, scuba aqua girl. New facility and top 5 in the country, if not top 3. Great diving 20 minutes away.

 

[RIOceanographer]

Go to University of Rhode Island, scuba aqua girl. New facility and top 5 in the country, if not top 3. Great diving 20 minutes away.

URI does have a marine biology program, and while it is a good program, it isn't really that famous so I suspect you may be thinking of URI's much more well-known Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) at the URI Bay Campus. I did my Ph.D. at GSO in Biological Oceanography. The new facility you are talking about is probably the Undersea Exploration Center which is going to start construction at GSO this year (although if you really did mean the biology program you may have meant the new biotechnology building, which also hasn't been built yet). Unfortunately, GSO is strictly a graduate school so it won't help her at this stage, but it is worth keeping in mind for later.

The Biological Sciences Dept would still be an option for a BS in bio or marine bio, and at least one good thing about it is that scuba_aqua_girl mentioned being a shark fanatic. NOAA's Narragansett Lab is the home to NOAA's shark tagging program (http://na.nefsc.noaa.gov/sharks/) so you might be able to get some sort of internship or volunteer position with them while you were in school.

Here is URI's Graduate School of Oceanography website:
http://gso.uri.edu/

And this is URI's Biological Sciences page:
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/bio/

Thanks for the info on UNCW. Right now I am really debating between there and somewhere in FL. But Im not sure of some schools in FL. Thanks about the info about interns.

Since you are looking for schools in Florida, Florida Institute of Technology is worth checking out. I went there for my BS and was very happy with it. My degree was in oceanography, but they also had a decent marine biology program. When I was there, they had a lot of scholarship money available (that was one of the big reasons I went). Here are the sites for both their biology and oceanography programs:

http://cos.fit.edu/biology/
and
http://www.fit.edu/AcadRes/dmes/oceanography.html

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

URI does have a marine biology program, and while it is a good program, it isn't really that famous so I suspect you may be thinking of URI's much more well-known Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) at the URI Bay Campus. I did my Ph.D. at GSO in Biological Oceanography. The new facility you are talking about is probably the Undersea Exploration Center which is going to start construction at GSO this year (although if you really did mean the biology program you may have meant the new biotechnology building, which also hasn't been built yet). Unfortunately, GSO is strictly a graduate school so it won't help her at this stage, but it is worth keeping in mind for later.

Yeah, that must be what im thinking of.

 

[ryt]

Being from VA I toured a lot of schools in SC and FL, Coastal Carlolina originally had a program set up so that I could get in state rates since VA didn't have a Marine Bio program, well VA cut the program and I started looking elsewhere. I was never really impressed with CC, their field work didn't seem to start until your juinor or seinor year. I finally settled with Univ of Hawaii at Hilo for their Marine Science program. Lots of nice field work and I pay about the same even with travel expenses that I would have paid going to CC out of state.

The one thing I find crucial is field experience. We have some people come out here that have only been on a boat a few times in their life but want to be a marine scientist. They take oceanography 201 here, which is very boat-intensive. Many people go on the boat, spend the entire time puking their guts out (Hilo's waters aren't the nicest sometimes), run back to land and change their majors. Its nice to figure that kind of stuff out your freshman year rather than your seinor.