Undergrad advantages/disadvantages? Marine Biology or Oceanography?

[ImperiousRex]

Thanks for the responses. I must say that although money is a strong motivator it's not the primary one in this case. Ever since I was a kid I always knew what i wanted to study, either herpetology, or marine biology. Living in the Caribbean for a while as a kid, I spent lots of time around the beaches here, fascinated by all aspects of ocean life. I can distinctly still remember observing the different types of plants and animals that I had seen when out on the reefs and in the water, running home at the end of the day and learning as much about them as I possibly could. Wow, for some reason i felt like a little kid typing that last part out.. BTW, i would LOVE to get my scuba license, hopefully i can do that here in the next month or so before I have to go back to the mainland..

My fascination lies mainly with marine reptiles, amphibians and cephalopods but marine life and the ecosystems in general as even the different qualities of water itself still fascinate me. Unfortunately I took some unexpected turns in life and ended up where I didn't really want to and now after some wasted college years and a few changes in my major here I am. Depressing enough as it is to look back and see that I have wasted all that time pursuing something I just wasn't truly passionate about, maybe it's time to start again from scratch. So the story begins, I want to study different aquatic ecosystems and their continuing changes in the different climates as well as these effects on the life there, mainly cephalopods, reptiles and amphibious life with an emphasis on aquatic plants but fish and basically everything there as well... Pretty much a general type of specialization but I don't want to spend the next 10+ years doing so.. if that makes any sense...

 

[Thalassamania]

Econ likely gave you the math background that you need, that's good. It sounds like you have the interest, but I need to remind you ... there's NO MONEY IN IT!

Milt may have put it in a humorous way, but he's not kidding:

Reason Number Three: "I want to be a marine biologist because I want to make big bucks."

Okay, here’s the bottom line. By Federal law, marine biologists have to take a vow of poverty and chastity. Poverty, because you are not going to make squat-j-doodly in this job. Just how squat is the doodly we are talking about? Well, five years after finishing my PhD I was making slightly less than a beginning manager at McDonalds. Ooh, a 36 year old guy with 13 years of college and 5 years of post-doctoral experience making just about as much as a semi-literate 19 year old with pimples the size of Bolivia, who can speak perhaps 3 words at a time before the term "you know" enters the conversation.​

And chastity because, well, who’s going to date a marine biologist? The smell alone tends to dissuade a large proportion of the opposite sex.

As a grad student you will be lucky to make $1000 a month, maybe a tuition waiver, no health insurance. There is a better way, which is what I did: get a job where you want to go to school, most universities let employee's go for free. Take a few classes, then apply to the degree program. If you did well in the classes you should have no trouble getting in, then all you have to do is adjust your work schedule to accommodate your classes and research, with is easier than you think. That way you go to school for free with a real salary coming in and health insurance, retirement, etc. You're still never going to get rich, but this way is a whole lot easier.
​

 

[Sprocket]

Thanks for the responses. I must say that although money is a strong motivator it's not the primary one in this case.

Ok, So here's how it works in Australia:

Undergrad: Full time, no money. 3 years minimum

Honours or Masters: Need GPA >3, Full time (and them some, expect to work 50+ hours a week), no money. 1-2 years. (I worked weekends as a zookeeper for rent and food money)

PhD: Need 1st Class Honours or MSc and publication record to qualify for an APA or equivalent scholarship. 25% of applicants successful. 3 years salary, at $20 007AUD (so about $14-15K USD). I earn a couple of extra grand teaching a year. Full time (and them some, expect to work 50+ hours a week). Expect to take 4 years to complete.

Postdoc Grant: Need PhD + strong publication record. Less than 10% of applications successful. 3 attempts, then game over. 3 years salary, $60 -80K AUD(I know in the US postdocs get around $39K USD at the moment as my partner just got one).

Tenure: Expect to do 2-3 postdocs before qualifying for a tenured position, unless you're hot stuff. Full time job, full benefits, maybe $100K AUD a year. EXTREMELY competitive, come up a few times a year.

As you can see, there's no job security or much money for a long, long time. You'll earn less than a tradesperson until you're 30ish.

To me, the benefits of working a job which I would do for free, where I make my own hours, look how I want and travel a lot outweigh the fact that all the people I went to high school with who did sensible degrees like accounting, dentistry and economics all are buying houses when I still wind up with a 2 digit sum in my bank account every fortnight.

Basically, if money is a factor at all, it's the wrong career path.

However if you know that, I'd be seaching round on the net and finding labs that do research you're keen on. Read their publications and ask them for advice and what they expect of a research student - you'll get some awesome advice from some and no reply from others.

 

[martinwaller]

This is all very fascinating to hear to a non-scientist, and armchair explorer like myself. I had no idea that our top young ocean scientists were is such dire straights financially. I guess you have to love it to pursue a career as a marine biologist or oceanographer.
I suppose there are lots and lots of young people out there who "want to be a marine biologist" but have no idea that it is such a difficult career path. Earlier I linked to a video talk by a young oceanographer at Scripps Institute YouTube - Adventures in Oceanography

you could definitely see that he enjoys his work, but I didn't know it was such a struggle. Do scientists at places like that struggle as well, he seemed to have been all over, so maybe that is 'payment' enough.

Being retired (accounting -- not the most glamorous!) I can think back to a life of 9 to 5 work and only excitement on the weekends and holidays -- but I don't think I could have traded the security for a more exciting day to day existance. And, I don't think I would have been able to pass the physics and math requirements to be a scientist.

All the best

Martin

 

[Thalassamania]

Yes, scientists-in-training everywhere (even the top institutions) struggle financially, but there are significant compensations. Your time is pretty much your own, you work on what you're interested in, if you want there are amazing travel opportunities, many of which could not (at least until recently) be had at any price, you don't have to dress for the office, etc.

Dale is rather atypical, and the highly adventurous style that he presents, while possible, is not the usual life of a marine scientists, as I said in a piece that I wrote a few years ago:

Underwater science is usually rather dull. Hours spent collecting data. Data that’s not particularly interesting in and of itself. Data that becomes interesting only when conjoined with similar data from other sites and times. The media stars of underwater science like Sylvia Earle and Bob Ballard reach out from the pages of a glossy book or beckon from a tightly edited video production, crisp and seductive images that intersect at a precise and meaningful conclusion right there on the last page or in the last minute.

Real life is not like that, at least not very often. It’s repetitious … hour after hour, cold, uncomfortable, usually strenuous, occasionally dangerous. But every once in a while, every once in a long while, there’s magic. Something really special happens that makes up for all that’s come before, something really special.​

 

[archman]

Classically (19th century to 1930's), the majority of "naturalists" (we now call them biologists) were independently wealthy individuals who pursued scientific research as more of a hobby. Or they were monks. In any event, these were people who had lots of free time to do whatever they wanted.

Post WWII, higher education in the U.S. (particularly community colleges) expanded through the roof. There was a massive hiring binge of academics and a great deal of government funding to support them.

This "golden age of higher education" lasted through the mid-1980's. After that, government support for higher education began significantly cutting back. Nowadays, less than 40% of professors even are tenured or on the tenure track. The remaining 60% (and increasing) of professors are professors in name only but little else. They're contractual workers, paid by course (~3,000 USD for a 3-credit course), with no research allocation. Most aren't even permitted to join university health care or retirement plans. Little to no job security, either.

On the other foot, while U.S. higher education is now languishing badly, options for marine scientists in private industry and government agencies are either holding steady or even increasing. The majority of colleagues of my age are pursuing careers as marine scientists are employed as such. Whereas virtually no one has secured the coveted tenure track university position as a marine biologist/oceanographer. Universities simply aren't hiring much, and the competition for that handful (literally) of jobs is fiercer than anything I know short of the astronaut corps.

 

[adurso]

Adjunct professorships are not a bad part time gig. I have been an adjunct since 94, I discovered I had no interest in pursuing a tenure track position after I learned of the political nonsense involved.

Archman, are there any undergraduate maine bio programs you would recommend and why?

 

[ImperiousRex]

Archman, are there any undergraduate maine bio programs you would recommend and why?

This.. I would love to know

 

[martinwaller]

Yes, scientists-in-training everywhere (even the top institutions) struggle financially, but there are significant compensations. Your time is pretty much your own, you work on what you're interested in, if you want there are amazing travel opportunities, many of which could not (at least until recently) be had at any price, you don't have to dress for the office, etc.

Dale is rather atypical, and the highly adventurous style that he presents, while possible, is not the usual life of a marine scientists, as I said in a piece that I wrote a few years ago:

Underwater science is usually rather dull. Hours spent collecting data. Data that’s not particularly interesting in and of itself. Data that becomes interesting only when conjoined with similar data from other sites and times. The media stars of underwater science like Sylvia Earle and Bob Ballard reach out from the pages of a glossy book or beckon from a tightly edited video production, crisp and seductive images that intersect at a precise and meaningful conclusion right there on the last page or in the last minute.

Real life is not like that, at least not very often. It’s repetitious … hour after hour, cold, uncomfortable, usually strenuous, occasionally dangerous. But every once in a while, every once in a long while, there’s magic. Something really special happens that makes up for all that’s come before, something really special.​

You have articulated that so well... 'That every once in a long while, there's magic'.. I guess that makes up for the "real life" nature of the job. In Dale's "Adventures" marine science talk he does make the point in the beginning that most of what you real scientists do is boring and involves an endless search for grant funding. But, then he concentrates on the 'fun' aspects of his job. Which i suppose makes sense when you are trying to give an interesting talk -- but, when all you see is that part of the job, whether by this Scripps scientist or someone like Bob Ballard, you tend to think that is what it is all about all the time. I hope that budding young scientists in high school are not being done a disservice when they only see the 'glossy side' of things.

Martin

 

[Thalassamania]

I've had the good fortune, over the years, to work with many of the science "popularizers," and I've usually felt that the criticisms pointed at them (and believe me there is a lot within the science community) was unjustified, except for the issue that you just identified.

We live in a results now, immediate gratification, safely sanitized world where dive training has the pretense of being an "Adventure Dive" and those too timid to go to the keys may dive in tank at EPCOT and stroll down a Disney safe Duval St. at the Old Key West Resort. I've watched more than a few "budding young scientists" come and go who were not prepared for the realities and the challanges. My son wants to go into science, I've raised him on stories of Humbolt and Scott, Crick and Darwin, Beebe and Momson, Cook and Bligh, Lindberg and Apollo 13 rather than the more popular fare, and the difference shows.