<p>When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I watched copious amounts of discovery channel and animal planet, read any book possible on the subject and generally gloated in the fact that I could correctly identify an orca as a dolphin and the finback whale as being the second largest whale out there.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was that know-it-all kid. </p>
<p>Well, at the ripe age of 10, I learned that being a marine biologist heavily relied on federal/private grants and that I would most likely teach and hope one day I could find the money to do field research. </p>
<p>So I let that dream go.</p>
<p>Now I am in college and pursuing a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (my school has biology split up into 3 parts). At first, I was planning to use this degree to go into Public Health and epidemiology. Yet, the more ecology I get into, the more I realize how much I love animals, watching their behavior, studying them...all that sort of stuff. </p>
<p>I guess my question is...Does anyone know how I could get into field research with animals? Does anyone else face this problem? Will my route still rely heavily on teaching? I have no qualms about getting an advanced degree, I was planning on it anyway, I just...I don't know if I would be a good professor...</p>
<p>So, yeah. Thanks!</p>
<p>Yeah it's totally possible to do field research with animals. You just have to find a professor/organization that works with them. My friend who wants to be a vet and do research found opportunities both through labs at our university and through the USDA. She's currently in Australia and recently got back from a day tagging and taking blood samples from koalas in the wild!</p>
<p>humane society work? i know, not field research, but working with animals...</p>
<p>does seaworld (or some place like that, zoos?) have internships in the summer?</p>
<p>ask around your science department.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, I would like to be a Doctor.
When I was in HS, I would like to be an Architect.
When I was in College, I took up IT and Business course.</p>
<p>Now, I'm a Financial Analyst. Way too far for what I dream when I was young. Experience and people molds me, they make me for who I am now. :)</p>
<p>When I was little I wanted to be a vet, then a doctor. Then I realized I wasn't into math/chemistry very much, and now I want to be an English prof or a criminal prosecuting lawyer/paralegal. Like those are similar...hahaha</p>
<p>I wanted to be a paleontologist in elementary school, which then changed to architecture in middle/high school, and now finally it's been settled that I'd rather fly jets and blow things up.</p>
<p>when i was little I wanted to be the surgeon general. </p>
<p>Literally the surgeon general. why? because I thought I could be GI Joe AND a Doctor. lol.</p>
<p>Then in high school I wanted to be a rastafarian and failed most of my classes as a result.</p>
<p>Now in college I'm pursuing econ but once i graduate I really want to pursue medicine again.</p>
<p>When I was younger I wanted to make video games, but the industry was perhaps not superlucrative and was too laden with sausage, so I went into finance/econ. Hmm.</p>
<p>When I was younger, I wanted to be a Navy fighter pilot, but eventually I decided that my vision wasn't good enough. But then I was trying to find money to go to Stanford, so I applied for and got an NROTC scholarship and I had thoughts of being a pilot again (you can get LASIK and still be eligible in the Navy)...but then the logistics wouldn't have worked out (I would have had to commute to Berkeley once a week), so I took a scholarship to the University of Maryland. Since then I dropped Engineering (I wanted to do mechanical or aerospace), and I'm studying English now with the goal of being an English teacher. Some jump, huh?</p>