Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Becoming a proffesional "Pond Boss"

I will be heading off to university next year, and am enrolled in Environmental Studies. I plan on getting an MBA after my undergraduate degree, but was wondering what other degrees are available that have to do with fisheries management? My university councilor at my school didn't know too much about it. Thanks.

Go work for someone for a couple of years before you go back and get your MBA. You'll get a lot more out of it if you have some real world experience. That being said if SMU would give me my money back I would give them my MBA back. Good Luck.

I am about 3 or 4 semesters away from graduating with B.S. in biology and minors in limnology and chemistry. I plan on going to UMD for a masters right away. I am planning on working as a fisheries biologist, I found that a biology degree was the best choice for me. Biology lets you focus on your area of interest due to the huge number of topics covered. I am not sure what exactly is covered under enviromental science, but you may want to look at getting a major in biology and a minor in enviromental studies, ecology, fiseries managment or icthyology. Outside of the public sector there isn't a ton of work for fisheries biologists. Make sure you take the right classes and get the right minors. There are only about a billion biologist graduating each year, you need to do the course work to set yourself apart.

Jimbo - After reading your question and the answers so far, I think a response actually could be split into two parts.

If you are asking about becoming a private sector fisheries biologist, such as the professional pondmeisters who frequent this site, I would echo what has already been said. You'll need at least some biological background, some darn good field experience, and then I'll bet an MBA might be pretty darn valuable. After all, you'd be in private busines. I don't know much about that business, and hopefully you'll get some more feedback on this website from the folks out there doing such work!

If you are interested in becoming a fishery biologist for a state, provincial, or federal agency, then I think an M.S. in fisheries would be much more valuable for most jobs than would be the MBA.

An organization called the American Fisheries Society maintains the certification program for fisheries professionals. Quite a few of my Canadian friends are also AFS members, even though it says "American" Fisheries Society rather than "North American." (We've actually had some debates over this in the past.)

Anyway, following is the website for AFS. You can get quite a bit of information there.

http://www.fisheries.org

Also, here is the link to their guide for selecting or evaluating a university fisheries program.

http://www.fisheries.org/html/Professional_Development/Criteria/criteria_eval _univ_fish_prg.shtml

Hope this helps,
Dave

Make sure it's what you know what you're getting in to. Be aware of how many jobs are out there that you're interested in and realize that you'll definetely have to pay your dues. Realize that unless you obtain atleast a Masters it'll be somewhat difficult to find a job and even more difficult to find a job that'll pay enough to make it worth while. HAVE a back-up plan or atleast a good minor or two. My views maybe somewhat scewed due to the fact that my state has a ton of competition for about 2 descent jobs. Best of luck to you. Just research what you're about to get into.

Okay, thanks alot guys, lots of helpful responses here. The AFS link was really good. I understand about the unavailability of employment in this sector. I have been talking with some profs at local universities. Thanks!