Careers in Biology
Training in biology provides biology majors with a wide variety of potential career options. The choice of potential careers is wide, even within a specific area of biology. Further, biologists often fulfill a large number of roles even within one career track. The choice of potential employers is wide, and includes federal and government agencies, as well as agriculture and pharmaceuticals, and other private and public industries. In addition, the amount of education required depends largely upon a specific career choice. Choosing a career in biology is about matching a wide number of factors, including personal ethics, salary, and personal interests.
Within biology itself, there is a wide diversity of potential careers that exists even within fields that are seemingly small. Winter and Belikoff note, "The classification of biologists as botanists, zoologists, or microbiologists gives little hint of the wide variety of biological disciplines that exist. For example, a microbiologist whose primary interests involve bacteriology may perform very different duties from those carried out by a microbiologist working in virology" (4).
The American Institute of Biological Sciences notes that biology careers tend to fall into four main areas of specialization. These are: 1) research, 2) health care, 3) the great outdoors, and 4) education.
Within the research area, most jobs are as research biologists. These researchers learn how living systems work, and can include research scientists at a university or private institution like a pharmaceutical...
Further, many research assistants such as laboratory technicians are needed in the research field.
Health care is a field sometimes overlooked by biology majors. Doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and other medical personnel play an important role in the health of individuals.
Some health care professionals work in administration and public education as well as epidemiology (Snyder).
Horticulturists, zookeepers, and wildlife biologists work in the great outdoors. Private companies as well as federal and state governments and the not-for-profit conservation sector are common employers (Snyder).
Education is also a rewarding field for biology majors. While many educators work within primary and secondary schools and colleges, museums, zoos and nature centers also employ educators (Snyder).
Biologists often fulfill a large number of roles within a research and teaching career. Winter and Belikoff note, "During a lifetime career, a bioscientist may engage in teaching, research, administration, service work, or industrialized production" (8).
The choice of employers within the field of biology is diverse. Note Winter and Belinkoff, "Your employer may be an educational institution, government installation, private research foundation, zoo, botanical garden, aquarium, arboretum, natural history museum, or an astonishingly wide variety of industrial or business concerns" (6).
Choosing a final career is a difficult and often seemingly final choice. One way to ease fears about choosing…
