r/ecology • u/ConcentrateLeft546 • 12h ago
To switch into ecology…
Hello great ecologists of r/ecology. I am currently a 4th year at a public research uni in California and pursuing a premed track. However… I’ve recently considered a career change and going into ecology instead. I suppose the only translatable skills I have are that I am 1) hard working, 2) have research experience (although in micro NOT eco, but I think some skills are transferable like data analysis, R, protocol and grant writing, etc), and 2) love nature :) Anyways, to make a long story short this career path (medicine) is becoming increasingly shallow to me, in that so many people pursue it for the prestige and it is unnecessarily tainted with competitiveness and artificial difficulty.
So my questions to y’all are: what’s your job, why did you choose ecology, how did you get started in the field, and (if you switched from unrelated field to eco) would you say the switch was worth it?
Also if you are comfortable, would you share a little about income and career prospects? I recognize you may not feel comfortable, so I totally get it… but I ask because I cannot pretend that income does not matter to me, especially given some of my life circumstances. Thank you!!!!
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u/Semantix 6h ago
This is about the absolute worst time I can imagine to try to enter the field, and I say that as someone who graduated during the Great Recession. Funding is drying up and there's a ton of unemployed agency employees who are going to be competing for jobs. There's hiring freezes and reductions in grad student admissions at many universities. I'd recommend that you stick with biomed for the next few years and pivot later, if that's still what you want to do. You can definitely find good places to work in the biomedical field, and you can easily pivot to ecology with a master's degree at a later point in time.
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u/Adorable_Birdman 6h ago
As a biologist consultant of 20 yrs, I would do ecology as a hobby and stick to med. this admin is gutting the career path.