How to become a Biologist

A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology, the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms, their relationships with each other and the environment. To be a professional biologist you need to do a lot of studies and work really hard. It's not an easy path to tread on. If you are planning to follow it make sure you start early and with proper guidance.

There are biologists studying various aspects related to biology such as zoology, botany, microbiology, ecology, conservation biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, paleontology, evolutionary biology, physiology and many other. As a beginner you'll need some basic knowledge on all the major fields of biology. This foundation is a must to reach the higher levels. Therefore make sure you're pretty familiar with them. School, college or university will provide you some basics & you'll have to broaden your knowledge by reading. Using text books, journals, research papers and scientific articles will expand your knowledge on your interests. Try to get updated on current issues and new research findings related to the field.

Explore nature at every possible occasion. Try to observe what's there and the processes happening around them. If you're interested in zoology, botany, ecology, conservation biology or any other similar field, the experiences you gain at the field is invaluable. Note down your observations and refer to books or any other reliable source and learn more about what you observe. Maintaining a proper field note book will help you on this. (next post will explain you about the field note book)

If you're an undergraduate student, try to get opportunities to work voluntarily in the researches conducted by post graduate students or academics. Don't look for payments at the very beginning. Some times you will get paid. Even though you're not, you might get payments when you become more experienced in the field. At the starting point experience is much more worthy than a payment. The contacts you can develop by working as an assistant will be really useful in your future.

A biologist must have good communication skills. Writing books, scientific articles and research papers and conferences are the main methods that scientists use to share their knowledge with the scientific community as well as the general public. Therefore good writing and presentation skills will always help you immensely. Proper knowledge on both your mother tongue and English language is necessary to communicate with the local people and with the international scientific community.

Computer literacy and some knowledge on mathematics and statistics will also help you a lot. Especially to do the data analysis in researches data base maintaining, calculation skills and statistics is a must. Without them you won't be able to do much.

These are some tips only. There can be many other important stuff that can help you in your path. To reach a good level in professional biology field you'll have to achieve really good results in your studies as there are not much openings to reach a high level through this field. So if you're really looking forward to choose this field, make sure you study well and work hard all the time. Because "Survival of the fittest" will be the rule.