Herpetology as a Career?

hello everyone, my name is Jess & i am 16 years old...

i have always been extremely interested in animals, and my ideal career is herpetolgy, idealy working in the field...

my question is what kind of education do i need as far as college? also, does anyone know of any good schools for herpetology? how many years do herpetologists attend college?...also, what is the likelihood of making a decent income on working in the field? ..and finally, is there a decent amount of jobs available in this field?

thanks so much,
jessica

To a Herpetologist, you must get your a graduate degree: a Masters Degree or even PH.D in Herpetology. This takes 4 years of undergraduate college, then either 2-4 more years in the Masters program, and another 4-6 years in PH.D.

You must do research and so forth to become a certified Herpetologist, and this is the educational side of being in Herpetology.

Now to be a breeder "herpetologist" without a degree, you technically don't need any education other than the care and species specific information.

The biggest challenge is finding schools that teach Herpetology. But if you have a passion for it, I'm sure you can find where you need to be.

Herpetologist is just a name that someone can call themselves based on their field of study, like microbiologist, evolutionary ecologist, or neural physiologist.

For example, I am currently a graduate student that is studying biotic and abiotic stressors in anuran larva. So I can call myself either an ecologist, a community ecologist, possibly a wetland ecologist, a population biologist, a herpetologist, or probably a host of other spiffy titles.

The truth is nobody in the scientific community cares what you call yourself, only that your work is intersting and contributes to the ever growing body of knowledge. In the end we are all just scientists that need to be flexible in our area of expertise.

And to be completely truthful, there is a stark reduction in the amount of traditional herpetologists, ornithologists, entomologists, and the like. Now researchers will develop a career path that revolves around more of a specific phenomena, like gonadal development or the effects of habitat heterogeneity on population distribution, and then pick a study animal that will fit into the project.

My best advise if you want to be a herpetologist would be to go to any larger college that has a good biology program, take classes that interest you, and graduate with a GPA above 3.5, the higher the better. Also make sure to get into a lab as soon as possible. Hopefully you can get in as a lab assistant your freshman year (usually you'll have to volunteer). Then try to move between labs to get as diverse a research background as possible. This will put you in a good position when you graduate to get into the lab you want to as a graduate student.

Before you graduate college, maybe your junior year, start to look for researchers that are working on projects that interest you. Start to talk to them about your interests and let them know that you will be interested in joining their lab in the near future.

It's a long road, but if you stay 2 steps ahead you will be better off than those that wait till the last minute to get into the research side of academia.

Just noticed that you are in PA. You should look into attending the University of Pittsburgh. They have a Professor named Rick Relyea that has done a lot of work with gray treefrog tadpoles. Just a thought.

And to be completely truthful, there is a stark reduction in the amount of traditional herpetologists, ornithologists, entomologists, and the like. Now researchers will develop a career path that revolves around more of a specific phenomena, like gonadal development or the effects of habitat heterogeneity on population distribution, and then pick a study animal that will fit into the project.

I want to second this very strongly. Personally, I say I'm a biomechanicist or functional morphologist when asked, rather than a herpetologist. Knowing one system or field very, very well, whether it be endocrinology or animal locomotion or anything else, lets you do much better science than knowing all systems and fields superficially and centered on one group of animals.

I'd also say it's no longer a good idea to be wedded to a single group of study animals these days. Both my prof and myself are very big herp people, but he's published on everything from cats to centipedes to fish, and I've got ideas spanning a wide range of animals (and even into plants). I doubt I'll be working on herps for my PhD work.

However, the advantage of knowing one field in depth is that the questions become so much more compelling and fascinating that personal preferences for model species become secondary. I'm fine about working with mammals if it gives me a chance to prove an idea I have about how their limb-bones work.

It's not easy, and requires a lot of schooling; in addition to what LadyOhh mentioned, if you want a professorship, you should be prepared for another 3-6 years of post-doctoral work. The good news is that most graduate programs (MS and PhD) waive tuition and pay a stipend for you to live off in exchange for helping with classes (teaching labs, grading papers, etc), so you don't need to worry about paying for 18 years of college.

Oh, and last but not least, I also strongly second the recommendation that you do undergrad research. To get into college, they look at grades, test scores etc, to see if you can do well in college. In graduate school, your primary focus is research, so if you have several profs writing letters of recommendation stating that you're a good researcher, that'll do a lot more than a few GPA points. Plus, it's sometimes possible to get publications from undergrad research, which look REALLY good.

Good luck, and maybe one day I'll see you at a conference!

Henry