What is the path to becoming a succesful marine biologist?

A lot of your decision will depend on what area of marine biology you'd like to pursue. Do you want to do research or do you want to focus on education? I'm a marine biologist and work in an aquarium. I earned my undergrad degree at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (www.uncw.edu). They have a great program and offers a lot of opportunities for undergrad research. That is unusual at larger universities but will allow you to get your feet wet. I started working in a lab my freshman year and decided that it was not for me. Since I didn't want to do research I decided to work on a teaching license as well. After a few years of working at an aquarium I decided to go back to school and earned a masters in environmental studies with a focus in environmental education (also from UNCW).

Before you choose a school and decide where to spend four years of your life, make sure you visit several to decide what fits your needs the best. I would also recommend volunteering at an aquarium or other marine facility (if there is one near you) to learn about the animals they care for. There are also great opportunities such as marine science camps. I used to work at one in the Florida Keys called Sea Camp (www.seacamp.org). You get to go SCUBA Diving, do squid and shark dissections, and learn all about the oceans. If you are not already SCUBA certified, I would highly recommend that as well. The more you do in the field before college, the better idea you'll have of what you want to do. I hope that helps!

Chemistry, Oceanography, Physics, Math, Molecular Biology, Zoology, would all be good choices. After 4 yrs of undergraduate you'd get a bachelor's degree in one of those subject choices (typically called 'majors').

Then you would apply to do graduate work in one of those subject choices in what would be called Marine Biology, which would be at least another 4 years but often 5 or 6. That's called a PhD.

Then you would do 1-2 yrs of being a supervised assistant with a successful marine biologist. This is called a "post doc", and you'd be in their laboratory because they are successful enough that they have at least 6-8 people working with them.

Eventually, you get to be one of those people!

Hi Anthony,
I suggest you take a look at he following websites: http://www.oceancareers.com/ and http://www.marinecareers.net/.

They will give you lots of information about marine careers as well as colleges offering good programs, interviews with scientists, etc,.

Good luck!