Marine Biologists...

[ept44]

well when i was at the college fair they gave me a brochure and the lady explained to me that they guarentee a job starting at $180000 im just going by her n the brochure n i didnt have the brochure on me n i thought it was upstate. And they Train Almost every Marine science and biology there

 

[Thalassamania]

Well ... since those of us in the field know that they do not teach "almost every marine science and biology there," there is little reason to expect that the job guarantee and salary are also misapprehensions on your part.

 

[ept44]

ok i dont know that im only 15 years old i didnt go to college yet ok?

 

[scubasaurus94]

Good luck to you! I also am interested in a career in some field of biology, and marine bio is my number one pick right now. Any career that lets me do science and be near water is a career for me.

 

[Thalassamania]

ok i dont know that im only 15 years old i didnt go to college yet ok?

OK, I have a son who's 14, so I know where you're coming from. He's interested in marine science too, but more into evolutionary biology. What you need to do is find out what part of marine science you are interested in and who is doing the sort of work that you'd be interested in doing. That's where you want to go to college.

 

[M_Bipartitus]

... What you need to do is find out what part of marine science you are interested in and who is doing the sort of work that you'd be interested in doing. That's where you want to go to college.

This is excellent advice. To clarify, I suspect that when Thal said "college" he is in favor of traditional 4-year colleges, rather than 2-year colleges and for-profit schools. Many of the smaller schools do not have active reseach programs and going to one could limit how far you can take a career in science.

Work hard now so you're grades are good and it will be easier to get into what ever school is most appropriate for you. You may also do well enough in high school so that they might offer a scholarship to study there.

I add one way how you might go about searching for what research is done and where. To find out who is doing what, without the aid of journal article databases, can take a little work. Come to think of it I wish someone had told me about some of this stuff when I was looking for physics programs.


I'll consider an example within New York.

1. Consider a potential school. For the example I'll pick Cornell (no connection to them, just the first top school in NY that came to mind).

2. Go to the college's website and find a link to "Academics" or "Departments"
For Cornell University, this happens to be Cornell University - Academics - Academic Departments

3. Find a potential department that may have researchers you want to find. This may be "Biology," "Evolutionary and Ecological Biology," "Natural Resources" or several other department titles that may house relevant research. For the example, I'll pick "Ecology and Evolutionary Biology" from the list of departments.

4. From the department's page you want to either look for a link about "research areas" or "faculty" These links should list either the topics of research at a given department or the people who research there. I'll try the Cornell EEB department faculty list. The link on their page is "Faculty and Academic Staff"

5. Look through all the topics and/or researchers to get an idea of what goes on there. For example, about nine people down the list of Faculty there is a Prof. Flecker who specializes in tropical aquatic ecosystems. He is just one of many researchers listed for this department who research fish/ aquatics. Browse website for individual research groups to get more detailed idea of what they do.

6. Try looking through websites for several different professors in multiple different departments. You may find a topic that you never though of, but still sounds cool.

7. Repeat the above for many different schools to get an idea what is available where. Try SUNY schools, try schools outside of New York, if you are so inclined. If you are thinking you could go to school anywhere in the country, head over to Best College Rankings, Best Graduate School Rankings, Best Hospitals, and Best Health Insurance Companies - US News Rankings and look over the sections on best colleges. You may benefit from also looking at the section on best graduate schools because graduate schools are also ranked within a specific field.

 

[Variegated]

G'day - I'm actually poking my nose back in here as I'm bucking the trend and travelling to Michigan next month for a prospective postdoc on sexual selection in marine fish. Want to know if I should bother bringing my dive gear to Michigan for winter or just plan on staying inside and complaining about the cold!

Basically, I'm 27, and should I get this postdoc, I'll be looking at a salary of $30-40K. I've never met a rich scientist. Should you wind up head of department in a university, you'll do ok, but it's a career choice you take for the love, not the money.

My education thus far has been circuitous, as I left after a coursework MSc and worked as a zookeeper for a little while before going into research, but in a nutshell I did a BSc (Environmental Biology), a MSc (Conservation Biology) via course work, a MSc via research in Molecular Ecology on Amazonian fish and just completed a PhD working on evolutionary biology in desert geckos.

So, tips....

a) Make sure it's what you want to do. You're going to be a student for a really, really long time. That means no money for a long time and when people you know are buying houses, having babies etc and so on you'll be telling them "Yeah, I'm still at university..."

b) Treat Undergrad like a real 9-5 job. I now teach a bit of it and really really wish I did. When I hear "It sucks, I have a 4 hour break in the middle of the day. I might go to the bar" I immediately know that later in the semeter I will hear "It sucks, I have to pull an all nighter both nights this weekend to get my assignments done."

c) Summer break ain't a holiday - for research scientists (especially herpetologists like I've been here in Australia) it's fieldwork season. Volunteering for field work will not only get you out into some incredible country, it is hands down the best way of networking with the people who are looking for research students and will write compelling scholarship referrals.

d) Remember, it's not the organism that's necessarily interesting, it's the questions. Obviously my field is biased towards genetics - I spend 90% of my time behind a lab bench or a computer, and it wouldn't matter if I was working on slime mould or stingrays.
It also seems the more charismatic a study animal is, the worse the actual research. This year we had 2 MSC students with polar opposite projects. One worked on wolves in Scandanavian forests. He never saw a wolf, his field study consisted entirely of being cold and collecting scats. The other worked on land snail taxonomy in Paupa New Guinea and spent his time flying around the PNG highland rainforests in helicopters - and is describing at least 4 new species.
That and confining yourself to just marine, or dolphin, or snake or whatever projects will severely limit both your prospects and expertise.

e) If you want to do research, don't do a coursework masters in conservation biology.

Good luck

 

[WetPup]

The above post has some really good information.

I'm a university lecturer (I think what those in the US call an Asst Prof). My advice is to keep your options open as much as you can. I started out in marine science, ended up with a BSc and PhD in geology (which I now teach/research) and I also do mining consultancy work on the side.

There's nothing wrong with having some fun in undergrad, but just remember that the job market in the sciences is extremely competitive and while you might get "passes" and graduate, to get a job, you need to be more competitive than that, especially if you want to go through grad school first. Which usually means spending most of your free time studying. Not all of it though, even I used to be at the uni bar every Friday afternoon.

I'd recommend finding a local university or community college and looking up their marine science department on the web. Contact their department secretary and tell them you're interested in studying marine science. They'll usually put you in contact with someone there who you might be able to meet up with over a coffee and they can explain to you what they do, what you can expect to learn, what the job market is like, all that sort of thing. Most academics are really happy when school students take an interest in their field, we love to talk about it and encourage others!

 

[Hank49]

ok i dont know that im only 15 years old i didnt go to college yet ok?

I really admire your ambition and forward planning. I've been in commercial aquaculture for 33 years but when I was 15....all I wanted was a motorcycle.

 

[Variegated]

Forgot to add - I'm a divecon. It'seasily the best way to get regular diving in whilst being a broke student and I get to volunteer on a heap of marine fieldwork which has padded out my CV as a "marine" field biologist really well, even though I officially work on lizards in the desert. Walk into the marine science dept. and tell them you're happy to volunteer, you have a DC/DM card, up to date first aid/O2 and you're a BSc/MSc student and you'll probably get trips out of it.

E.g. I just spent a week up in Spencer Gulf SA on the Sepia apama aggregation collecting cuttlefish for a student who is about to start working on their liver parasites. All diving, travel, food and accomodation provided.