Registered for school finally, it has been over 10 years since I've taken a test until yesterday. I did quite well on the placement test considering. I'm going to try and get a BS in biology with some botany courses added. The thing is I know I've needed to be back in school for a long time, I just am unsure what I can go on to do after this step. Is a BS in biology enough to begin work in the field? If so what sort of jobs could I pursue? I'd like to further my education and maybe try and be an ethnobotanist but I'm unsure how people achieve that other than just sort of putting it together with a few different degrees. Any Nexians have a biology degree? What have you done with it? Or what have you done to further your education? Any good ideas or motivation is greatly appreciated.

I'm in an engineering program, so I'm not sure what to do with biology. I do know your career office should be able to help you with this! It's their job to help people with such things.

A BSc in biology won't give you much. You'll be qualified for every generic job available (think bank or other clerk, salesperson, etc). With a BSc you can also qualify as a laboratory technician, i.e. the lowest rank in a lab, but then as of lately you'll have to compete hard with more experienced seniors and others with higher degrees.

Nowadays a MSc following BSc is essential in pursuing a job in biology. Maybe it'd help if you could describe us how you imagine your future job working as a biologist? I'm deep in the field and I'd be glad to advise you.

(a little more optimistic post)



You can do... well, you can do anything you want. I really mean it.

I think people actually can do whatever they want to, no matter of their education. Or, let´s put it differently: I think people can (or should) do anything they find interesting, meaningful, helpful etc, regardless the field they have been educated in. I think people shouldn´t work here or there just because they feel they are supposed to... that´s exactly what the dominant culture wants us to feel like (and enslave us :-)

Ntwhtyouknw: If you really want to study, if you are interested in biology, if you want to learn... go for it! You will see that interesting job opportunities will find you, will "pop up" at the ´right´ point for you

I'd like to be a botanist or ethnobotanist, really I just want to have a real career that I can have some passion for. I was told with a BS in biology lots of doors would be open to further my education, but it would be difficult to get a job with only the BS. As long as I could work with plants and or chemistry and not end up doing anything that would feel unethical to me like pharma or animal testing I think I could be happy. School is all so foreign to me, I'm really kind of clueless. The counselors weren't very concerned with helping me understand what i was doing, more so with filling my schedule and getting me out of their office it seemed. So I just really am trying to move in the right direction and hopefully end up with an education that will lead me on a happier career path.

Maybe one day psychedelic psychotherapy will be a career option but until them I'd like to be as close as I can to it.

I guess I just really want to be helpful and do so with plants.




I like to think so.. I have read a lot of stories about people getting this same degree and not being able to find work, but I suppose to be fair I'm not really expecting to stop my education there but who knows if I will have that same drive in three or so years when I finish this step. Maybe ill get addicted to school and never want to stop going. It would be nice to be able to use my degree for work while I continue school.

Who knows if I'm right or wrong but I feel strongly that Entheogens are becoming more and more accepted in the world and one day might be used commonly in medicine, psychotherapy, addiction treatment and accepted as such. Perhaps if I pursued some counseling education as well I could play a part in it..

Sorry for ranting, I'm still trying to piece it all together... In short I love plants, Entheogens, helping people, and I'd like to have a career that agrees with that. I feel like were heading that direction even if it is far fetched.

Weird cuz I am in the process of doing exactly as what your doing man I figured it's th only thing I can find my self passsionate enough to pay to learn and hopefully make a career out of it. I'm excited to see what anyone might say cuz I'm kinda going into this blindly but have been out of school for two years now and figure I shld start this sooner or later.

Sadly, I think Infuns assessment is pretty accurate.A batchelors degree is just about an entry-level qualification to have on ones CV nowadays.

It can be a double-edged sword having such a degree and nothing further; realistically you will be over-qualified for the generic jobs and this can act against you should circumstances compel you into trying to secure work along these lines.It reflects how messed-up things are at present, and to be as sure as one can possibly be of pursuing a career in the field related to the batchelors degree one would need to be ready for taking it further to Masters level, or further still.

it really depends on what kind of hands-on experience you get on your way to a B.Sc.
Get the jump from sophomore year doing undergrad research in several labs until graduation, and you'll have more experience than most master's grads. Many students don't actively look for many different research opportunities during their undergrad, which is one reason they end up going back for a masters.

don't let education be a limiting factor, that's not always the case with employers.
take advantage of opportunities, and learn as many techniques as you can.

So I take it that you want to be working in a lab, maybe doing research like going onto expeditions, collecting and learning about plants, possibly analysing them too kind-of-thing. For such a thing you definitely want a Masters on top of your BSc. Put it bluntly, what the BSc degree tells is that you're too "good" now for low end jobs, so you do not need to do cleaner/macdonalds cashier/courier etc jobs. With the BSc you can be a salesperson, macdonalds manager, bank clerk. And with the MSc (by research) in Biology you often commit to more academic career and get you deeper in your preferred subject.

If you like doing just the above stuff, you may want to consider going for plant phylogenetics, bioinformatics and also a good touch of ecology - you'll be collecting plants, analysing their DNA and categorising them, and you'll maybe be discovering new species. You might be also getting to decipher plant-plant relations and how they fit in an ecosystem. Albeit interesting, such orientations often get horrible funding and thus you may need to fight a lot for placements.

Otherwise, a more biochemistry/chemistry orientation will allow you to get deep into plant's chemicals and discover new ones- check the Natural Products sciences which does just that. And if you want to be testing plant-derived chemicals you'll need to get into pharmacology/cell culture/molecular biology orientations. Mind you, with the latter you'll be mostly a lab person knee-deep into experiments and you may not ever get the chance of holding a living plant in your whole career.

Finally, if you want to go into study of plants per se, like investigating how do plants grow and flower, what determines optimum soil for a given species, how plants deter pathogens (fungi, insects etc), how plants form relationships with other species etc then you need to go for Plant Sciences. Note though that most of Plant Science people and funding is directed to understanding and improving current crop plants, so you might find yourself working in things you may not like, such as developing pesticides for crop plants or making transgenic plants.

Benzyme's advice of trying to get as much as techical experience is an excellent one!

Thanks for the advice, I feel a bit less nervous. I suppose I just need to learn everything I can and talk to the professors at appropriate times to get some advice on getting some hands on experience. I'll have plenty if time to think about my next move. I'll have to keep my eyes open for some research in the next couple years.

Sadly, I don't think so, especially since "biology" is so general. Probably not even with a Masters. Even PHDs are unemployed these days. I think it's best to supplement whatever science you study with some entrepreneurship courses, so you can create your own enterprise. It seems to me there are less employers these days, and the ones that do exist are not really doing the planet much good.