Comments | natureboy87: Ecology and Graduate School

natureboy87

Ecology and Graduate School

Apr 30, 2009 00:30

Who thought looking for a Graduate School to go to could be so exhausting. I know what I want to go for, Ecology and I'm leaning more towards Population or Community Ecology at this point. My top school right now is Penn State University and they have some nice professors from the look on their website but I also know that I can't invest in one ( Read more... )

wildlife ecology, psu, graduate school, ecology, college

Comments 4

fb_sheex April 30 2009, 12:13:39 UTC

I just want to be an Ecologist a Transportation Engineer already and do a job in the government...that's all I want...

Fixed! :P

I'm not looking forward to the grad work myself, so I can sympathize. I'll be finishing undergrad in Fall of '10, but (at this point) I'm looking at doing a masters over 2 1/2 years in the evening - 4 years is not pleasant! As I'm not much the school type, I'm itching to just be done with it all so I can enjoy a standard 8:00-5:30 job and be done with it all. Do you need to go all the way up through PhD credentialing, though, or can you stop with a masters?

natureboy87 April 30 2009, 13:35:06 UTC

My professors recommended only getting my masters now and wait to the PhD only because it can tend to pigeon hole when looking for jobs because they only want to here about stuff you did with your PhD. Problem is that a lot of colleges don't even let you just get your masters. Duke University wants me to go right on to the PhD, although I will get my masters if I cut out early. Penn State is being a little more forgiving and I found a professor there doing exactly what I want to do and that is monitor the Populations of Game Species. So right now, a masters at Penn State is looking really good.

fb_sheex April 30 2009, 14:00:38 UTC

Yeah, that's the unfortunate disparity between the research branch of science and the applied branch of science. The main reason I'm doing the masters is that there's talk of requiring all engineers, by 2012, to have such a degree before being able to qualify for the licensing exams. As is, most of the engineering certifications/qualifications come from field experience (if I wanted to be a structural engineer, for instance, there is a minimum of 6 years of post-BS-graduation work before you can take the exam; in reality it's probably closer to 8-10 years.) I'm going to stop at a standard professional engineer license, but even then it's pretty grueling.

The fact that I'll be able to do this stuff while actually out in the field is what gets me through. Being pinned up in academia for so long would drive me insane, and I'm sure you feel the same. Hopefully you'll be able to make the cut with just the masters, though, and be done with the stuff fairly soon. I'm crossing my fingers. :)

natureboy87 April 30 2009, 17:44:50 UTC

Yeah, I do feel the same but I have such a competitive field that a Masters is almost required to do anything within the Biology field, let alone Ecology. A guy talked to when I was doing an internship with the USDA said with a BS in Biology, you will be doing work that doesn't even require a degree, with a Masters you'll be doing that a BS in Biology can do and with PhD you can finally do Masters work and higher depending on how much experience you've had in the field. So I want to get at least my Masters to have some sort of edge and then get into either US Fish and Wildlife, US Geological Survey, USDA APHIS or the EPA.

At this point, I'm almost thinking I should just go for my doctorate and then I can go right in supervisory jobs in the government, but I want to do field researcher first which the government usually has BS and Masters people doing and then work my way to supervisor jobs.

One thing I am hoping for is that this "green" stuff opens more jobs for us Ecologists