I do not know how this is handled in the US, but in Germany the basics of R were taught in the Maths and Statistics class, but only to a very limited degree.
I have a Peruvian friend who studies environmental engineering and she was taught R in one of her statistics classes as well.
I think high school biology is pretty essential nowadays. It would have been an absolute nightmare getting through molecular cell bio (which is a mandatory course in Germany) without knowing the fundamental workings of the cell, protein-biosynthesis, and DNA replication and gene regulation. Chemistry is really important still, though.
Uni physics required for biology on the other hand is (depending on which area of biology you want to pursue) relatively easy to learn without much prior knowledge compared to the other two, in my opinion.
Yes! 100%! I think a lot of the humanities, while perhaps not useful at first glance, will have a big positive impact on how you approach problems. Also, being skilled in another subject (art, music, philosophy, history, etc.) will give you a (more) unique set of skills which sets you apart from all the other people who only know biology…
I will say though, as this thread may feel like an infinite list of things you should be doing: Don’t do everything we suggest. Aside from the mandatory stuff: Do what interests you. No matter if it is biology-related or not. You do not need to be good at everything in every possible scenario.
As a highschool junior, I know first hand how hard it can be to study biology. Find good books, ask lots of questions, explore as much as possible and learn wherever you can. I’ve been doing this since I was 6 and still learn something new every day. Notes are your friends. Use them constantly. If the opportunity to have a chance to work with animals arises, take it. It will definitely help you in the long run.
By the time you have acquired all the above skills, you will be able to take over from David Attenborough and head up the United Nations. I advise that you don’t need to do all the above. First, narrow down what sort of job you want. Animal biologist could be anything from testing new veterinary drugs on captive pigs to conserving rare butterflies in the mountains. It sounds like you are more on the side of wildlife conservation. So I suggest you get a broad knowledge of wildlife (e.g. be able to recognise different types of woodland, know the issues around invasive species, enough genetics to understand population size issues) and have a specialism to make you more valuable (e.g. bat surveying, marine crustaceans, bird-ringing).
I used to manage a team of wildlife surveyors in southern England. Applicants invariably said they had a good knowledge of wildlife and love of the countryside. So we would ask what areas of wildlife they were interested in. The answer was usually all of it. So what have you seen lately that was interesting? That usually just got a blank look. Then we would show them 20 photos of common species (chaffinch, adder, wood anemone, that sort of thing) and most couldn’t identify any of them. So you don’t need to know a huge amount to set you apart from the majority.
On second thoughts, I don’t think marine crustaceans counts as a specialism. There are so many of them, it would be like saying insects is your specialism. Crabs associated with hydrothermal vents would be a better one.
I specialize in science communication and interpretation. After 20+ years in that field, I still wish I would have taken more formal science and statistics courses when I was in school. This would have provided me with a greater base of knowledge to 1. understand what the heck a peer-reviewed study is trying to say, and 2. better translate scientific findings into stuff that the general public can more easily understand and appreciate. Peer-reviewed papers are written primarily for other scientists, but there’s another side to the coin that too often gets ignored–communicating why we need wildlife and nature and why we need to study it.
The ability to share science and conservation efforts with the public can go a long way toward gaining greater public support for conservation. Writing and public speaking gets easier with time. Both improve with repetition and experience and lots of honest self evaluation. Plus, it is rewarding to see someone’s face light up when they make a connection with nature through your efforts.
If I were in high school again, I would begin to read to read some of the classic works of Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold just to digest their writing style and techniques, which are remarkably clear and concise. I didn’t discover them until university. (I still read Sand County Almanac every other year at least.) Some of my favorite contemporary nature/science writers include Robin Wall Kimmerer, Bernd Heinrich, and Ed Yong. Their writing helped me learn that the world is full of things to discover and I often try to emulate their styles.
Thank you for the advice! I think brushing up on local wildlife would definitely be helpful for me, then.
I found the first part of the article, and read both. I found it very interesting, and full of great tips. Thank you for sharing!
Don’t tie yourself down beyond doing “biology”. There are so many specialist fields which you will discover once you are at university and one of those may well catch your eye. I started wanting to do field biology but ended up looking down a microscope for most of my career. In retirement, I have opportunities to do the field stuff I originally thought was going to put food on the table. in other words - keep an open mind.
At the risk of being a Debbie Downer or a Negaive Nancy: don’t set overmuch store by unpaid positions. They may seem like a way to “get your foot in the door,” but there is a reason those organizations are offering unpaid rather than paid positions. About a decade ago, this was discussed on a listserv called ECOLOG-L: An organization has no incentive to offer paid work when there is an endless stream of idealistic young people lining up to work for free. The participants in that discussion admitted that it wasn’t sustainable, but none had any real solutions.
So, if you want to do that awesome internship to learn a certain skill set or work with a certain taxon, do so. Put it on your resume. But don’t stay on that path too long. It isn’t going to get you there.
There’s so much great advice here! I want to add a couple of things…
There are a lot of opportunities for short-term positions that include field work. Most of them are paid (as they should be) and don’t provide other perks like housing.
I’ll list a few of my favorites below but I also want to plug our summer internship at Discover Life in America. Every summer, we take 3-4 undergraduate students (and occasionally high school and graduate students, too). We’re located in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and you basically roam the park with us helping to document the biodiversity we encounter through iNaturalist, DNA barcoding, and traditional taxonomy. You also learn about the nonprofit world, and how things work inside a national park. It’s fun and a great opportunity to see what field research really looks like. More info here. Housing and a stipend provided. Application opens January 2nd every year.
iNaturalist is also a really useful place to build your network. Talk to people, meet folks IRL, see what they’re doing and talk about your interests. You’re on the right track here!
This. Most people accept the streamlining that Universities apply to applicants, slotting them into defined programs. It makes exploring subjects to find the best fit very difficult. I heard “I’d really like to take such and such a course but I can’t fit it around my required courses” many, many times from classmates. Very few people arrive in post secondary education with and informed idea of what they want to do and an aweful lot of them only figure out that there’s something else they’d rather do than the specialization they signed up for in their first year without adding at least a year to their undergraduate studies.
Don’t make that mistake. Take a general biology program in your first year. It will be pretty much indistinguishable from the first year in the specializations and it gives you time to get some perspective. I switched iut of a specialization after second year. My advisor tried to talk me out of it and warned me that it would add a year to get an unspecialized degree. The fact that I had a bunch of math, stats and computer courses was a benefit to me, not a barrier when I entered the job market and I actually enjoyed my courses rather than plodding through them to get it done after I realized that it wasn’t where I wanted to go.
Hi, PBNat!
In my view, college is a time of figuring out as much as preparing, so keep an open mind and explore your interests–and things that MIGHT be interests. Find ways to be involved–it’s really hard to learn about the joy & practice of something in a classroom.
Get lots of views on the following: there’s lots of rating of universities & such; consider carefully what’s best for YOU as opposed to ‘generic student’. A smaller school where your profs know you and there are individual opportunities for research & discussion can result in a deep & wonderful education. There are great educators pretty much everywhere (and, of course, same for duds :-).
Lots of good advice from other community members. Of course math, general science, and volunteer work make a big difference. When I was working as a biologist, I spent a few weeks of the year on field work. The rest was in the lab and writing reports, letters, etc. You need strong writing skills.
What will really make or break you is people skills. It is easy to get along with people who want you to succeed. The trick is to get along with people who want the same job you do. You also need to get along with people who have a vested interest in you not succeeding because their vested interests conflict with yours. There are biologists who can walk this tricky tight rope and succeed. Pay attention to how they do it.
Those probably wouldn’t be offered in any high school class, but R is very commonly taught in stats courses in college (especially if you take something like “statistics for life sciences.” But I’m sure you could also play around with it and learn on your own. I have found that having a mentor teach it is a great way to get into R.
I was in a similar situation myself in 1956-60 when I went through Freshman to Senior HS. My interest was deeper and greater than any of my teachers in the Junior and Senior HS teaching programs. At the time I knew more about insects than any of my teachers and luckily I had parents that were not adverse to my interests and I had an older brother who gave me books and my grandfather actually worked as a printer and had access to seconds (books that had a mechanical error in them) and he gave me some impressive professional books on spiders and insects. In the end I ended up reading about and collecting insects myself to the point where I was a sort of expert myself and I could make decisions about my future based on that knowledge. Getting that ‘expert’ information into my applications to colleges was a major benefit of my ‘expertise’. In the end I might have spent more of my time looking at where my expertise would have been best fostered. In the end I decided to go to Columbia where I got a solid general education in science and the humanities which I was grateful for in the end because we need history and humanities to make us good citizens. You will be able to use your interest in Biology to drive your future course selections and outside reading. In the end my 60 years of professionally being a biologist was mostly educated by my own interests and I suffered the meagre instruction that the unfocussed professionals contributed to my education in biology. I would recommend you focus on learning the math, physics and chemistry that will make you into a superior biologist who will out-compete the simple biologists who just want to ‘swim with the dolphins’ rather than understand their development, physiology, behavior and ecology.
Can you shoot for an internship at a state or national park, forest, or wildlife refuge? The Student Conservation Association might offer a good fit. We need more biologists! especially in Conservation Biology. Hands-on field work is invaluable (as well as fun). It can also require good outdoor skills: rock climbing (think, checking on raptor nests or sampling biota at the tops of tall trees), backpacking to get into remote areas, whitewater boating, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling, flying drones, videography – these are all tools in the wildlife biologist’s tool kit. Go for it!