Fish and Wildlife Biologist?

I thought about being a Fish and Wildlife Biologist, what do I have to major in to become one? I thought about going for Natural Resource Management, and maybe double major in Biology as well. Any advise?Fish and Wildlife Biologist?
I am a wildlife biologist and agree with many of the things Alex said, but I feel that if this is something you really want you should go for it. Yes, this field IS highly competative, but it is NOT impossible to get a job and succeed at this career. I too cannot stress enough the importance of volunteer work, internships, and getting involved with research on campus that pertains to your major. You might want to major in something broad so that you can qualify for several types of jobs with it. In the past 5 years or so, I would say jobs are more readily available due to an increase of environmental consultant firms popping up. They also pay well for biologist positions..much better than government agencies, etc. You can also look for work with universities, non-profits, labs, etc. etc. I only have a Bachelor's but get paid as if I have a Master's or Phd due to 7 years of experience doing seasonal biologist jobs before I landed a full time permanent position. Like I said, hands-on experience counts!Fish and Wildlife Biologist?
Don't do it. Its a horrible career field hat is extremely competitive, requires at least a masters degree, pays very low and is in very little demand. Do yourself a favor and do something else with your life that pays well and has time off then use that time to volunteer at fw places.





That being said if you dead set on this awful field here is some advice.





1. Get good grades.No C's few B's mostly As.


2. Don't get a Bio degree, get a specific Wildlife biology degree, every state usually has one university that offers that degree, its UF for florida.


3. Know that your degree means nothing, experience is worth far more, so internship and volunteer volunteer volunteer.


4. A masters is required plan on going for a grad degree.


5. Dual major if possible, mostly so when you fail at finding a fw job you can do something else, but good dual majors for fw are computer science and geography espcially GIS.


6. Learn GIS, means geographic information systems, all wildlife bio jobs will require this


7. GIS GIS GIS GIS GIS GIS GIS


8. Limit your debt as much as possible top paying wildlife jobs are about 60k but thats top after 20+ years experience you'll most likely start around 26,000 for ops and 35,000 for permanent, you'll probably have to do ops for a while, oh and ops has no benefits





One last tip decide early fish or wildlife you can't do both, fish jobs are usually more important since they tie with commerical interests.





and my final advice is DON'T GO IN THIS FIELD THERE ARE VERY FEW JOBS AND TONS OF PEOPLE APPLYING





sincerely,


a regretul biology grad