Zoology

[PantheraPardus]

I'm currently in college, and i want to go into a career in science, and have been thinking for a long while about doing the zoology course, and was wondering if anyone who has done the course, could at all tell me what the course was like, and if anyone has done animal behavior and welfare, whether they could tell me what that course was like, i believe this is kind of a random question. But i'm currently unsure as to what course i specifically want to take, many of the courses don't seem to be that different, so i thought that asking someone who has done the course might help me choose which would actually be best for me. Any information or help or anything at all would be greatly appreciated.

Edited March 12, 2009 by PantheraPardus
miss spelling

[Paralith]

Panthera, course content can vary greatly from school to school. Your best bet is to find people who have actually taken the course at your school from the same professor that you might take it with. Or even email/meet with the professor her/himself. Many professors are happy to describe their classes to students.

[SkepticLance]

Basically, as Paralith said, it varies. It also varies according to lecturer/tutor. However, if you have a true fascination for the subject, it will be fascinating. You will love it.

 

I would suggest you try to include some subjects, though, that are more marketable in the job market. Zoology is incredibly interesting, but there are not too many jobs for zoologists, even if they end up with a Ph.D. If you have side subjects such as chemistry, maths, statistics etc., it may help eventually land a good job.

 

I did zoology and botany. But I also did chemistry and microbiology. Guess which subjects gained me a career?

[Paralith]

Well, this is my position on the subject: you're going to work your whole life, so you may as well enjoy what you do. I accept that getting a job won't be the easiest thing in the world for me, and I won't always (or ever) make a lot of money, and I'm on a long road there, but I love what I do so I'm ok with that. I'm working on becoming a non-human primate behavioral ecologist. Just a very specific subset of zoology.

[Mokele]

Honestly, I think zoology should be required for bio majors. The way I've heard some people talk, it's like the only animals that even exist are the model systems like Drosophila and mice.

[CharonY]

Actually I think that it is one of the strengths (and quite possibly also weakness) of the former German system. You do not declare a major as such, but you decide what you study beforehand, which results kind of a fixed curriculum. So as a biology student you got basic physics, mathematics and chemistry (with lab courses as appropriate), but also had to have genetics, zoology, botany, microbiology and so on. In the second two fourth semester you got to choose e.g. between in-depth courses in either biological discipline. Quite often there is a slight split between molecular biology courses and more "whole-organism" biology. There was no bachelor after that but you had to finish four more semester of the so-called main studies. These basically consisted on roughly month-long lab courses on a specific subject (e.g. ethology of ponies, song learning in zebra finches, bacterial proteomics, etc.), four days a week, 9 hours a day. And usually one day with lectures, mostly accompanying these courses. The advantage is of course that as a biologist in that system you tend to have a well-rounded education in biology and at least the basics in the other natural sciences (which, for most is unfortunately limited to the first four semesters. You could take more in the main studies, but usually only few are offered specifically for biologists). The disadvantage is, of course that you get fixated on biology alone. That is, you are trained to become a biological scientist and get basically primed for an academic career. A bachelor or even master is usually a much broader affair.