<p>What colleges have the strongest undergraduate marine biology programs?</p>
<p>If you are interested in marine biology only for undergrad, there are many schools strong in marine bio. Brown, Stanford, Cornell, Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, UNCW, Hawaii, Miami (FL), the UC's (especially UCSB), TAMU, URI, Florida, and Washington are some. Among LACs, Bowdoin, Williams, and Swarthmore have excellent programs. The 5 college consortium also has superb marine biology programs. </p>
<p>However, if you are interested in becoming a marine biologist, take this advice to heart:</p>
<p>It is NOT wise to major in marine biology (unless you're a double major). As any MB will tell you, marine biology is mostly a graduate school field. It is unlikely a marine biology major will land you a career or grad school admission. Furthermore, it is difficult to branch out from marine biology into other fields for grad school. What is far, far more important is getting the necessary anatomy, biology, biochemistry, organic chem, physical chem, physics, advanced calculus, statistics, computer science and possibly geology that you need to succeed in the field. There are many summer programs (Scripps, Duke Marine Lab, and Woods Hole spring to mind) that you can (and should) participate in to gain some background in marine biology. </p>
<p>Marine biology is a subset of oceanography (often called "biological oceanography") and is by far the most popular branch (chemical, geological, and physical oceanography being the other three), so the availability of jobs is not high.</p>
<p>Many, many schools can provide you with the proper undergraduate background for a career in marine biology. Many of these schools, like U Kansas, are not located on the coast. I strongly suggest picking a school strong in the basic sciences and math. Specializing at this point is a very bad idea.</p>
<p>Finally, you needs to know what you're getting into. Wanting to play with dolphins and fish is all very well, but very, very few people get these jobs. Most likely you will take a research cruise for 2-3 weeks PER YEAR, and spend the rest of your time writing up your results and grant proposals for future research. You will probably, with the increased focus on climatology, be studying microorganisms and microfossils instead of the traditional macroscopic focus. Conservation biology, beach loss, and environmental chemistry are also becoming increasingly important in marine biology. If these don't sound fun, it might not be the best field. It's not always fun and games like Cousteau makes people think.</p>
<p>UCSD has a good marine biology program.</p>
<p>Agreed, Scripps at UCSD and Woods Hole have the best oceanography programs in the US. However, UCSD's program is on the graduate school level.</p>