Cryptozoology forums > Blogs > mysticete's blog > view thread

Subject: Re: Welcome back! From: mysticete posted Fri, Jan 30 2009, 4:43am  As far as pay, several thoughts: One, if you do land a academic job (which isn't easy), your pay won't be bad at all, at least by my standards. With Biology you can increase the chance of getting a job by either getting a lot of experience with modern animals, which may lead to state F&G type employment (not great pay), or by getting some genetics type background. Biotech companies offer a variety of positions, some which pay quite well. Via Geology, oil of course pays awesome; one of the former members of my lab here at Wyoming landed a job in Houston making 90,000 a year. Personally, I find most of Geology boring which is in part why I focused on biology in undergrad. I would recommend getting a strong biology background even if you do prefer geology. Comparative Anatomy is for instance a pretty important course for paleo, and depending on your interests mammalogy, herpetology, and ornithology may also be important. Incidently, even with my bio background, after undergrad I seldom really had to deal with "fresh" specimens, usually just bones, which are not bad at all to work with. Personally I think biology gives one a slightly better background in paleo unless your interested in a few specific areas. It's also nice because it's a lot easier than to keep one "foot" in the present. For instance, one of my projects after PhD is looking at harbor seal speciation, and I would also like to go into more molecular systematics stuff with marine mammals, which present a wide open field. And you don't have to be in a fossil rich area to go into paleontology (or even be that interested in field work). U of Michigan for instance is a great paleo school, despite Michigan having a crappy fossil record. As far as Canadian schools go, you might look into University of Calgary's biology Masters/PhD program. I have a friend doing his PhD there, in Jessica Theodor's lab, and it sounds like a great school. I would also talk to your paleo prof about getting some research experience. If you have the motivation, there really is no reason why you can't go into paleo. Subject: Re: Welcome back! From: hw posted Fri, Jan 30 2009, 8:01am  Great, thanks. Everything you posted really helped me clear my head a bit. In terms of biology courses, I have taken vertebrate biology (where the labs involve dissecting and comparing a number of representative species from each major class, so I guess this is what you meant as comparative anatomy course right?), introductory ecology, insect biology, and a special topics biology course about Charles Darwin's voyage and his work (though not necessary a course that focuses on evolution, as I'll mention later, there's a seperate course entirely devoted to evolution). Since I have taken quite a number of biology courses (as electives for my major) so far, so I mind as well minor in biology. So right now, I'm currently taking an introductory genetics course and from there I plan to take a course on evolution. In geology, I'm currently taking an introductory stratigraphy/sedimentology course, structural geology (a very brutal course if you ask me or most geology students at my school) and an environmental geoscience course (as an elective for my major). In terms of jobs, I'm planning to just send my resume off to as many mining and geologic survey companies as I can for this summer to get some field experience (which I have yet to obtain). So I am pretty much keeping my options very open at the moment. If I come across a research assistant job involving ichnology, I mind as well give that a try if I don't get accepted by any mining company or geologic survey. I definitely should talk to my paleo prof for sure at some point. Here are the department websites in case you're wondering what the courses I'm taking are like: SFU Department of Biology SFU Department of Earth Sciences Cheers.

Close Window