In 2015 I began working my first biology field job as a wildlife biologist/ fresh water ecology student for the University of Tasmania and HydroTasmania. I was nineteen at the time and since then I have worked many other jobs in the field but I still find that this position is still my stand out job. Here I answer FAQ I receive from both supervisors, peers, and other biology students.
What did you do in Australia? Working for UTAS as a wildlife biologist, I got the opportunity to work on a number of different projects. Some of the animals I worked with included platypuses, and Tasmanian devils. I was responsible for weighing them, collecting hair, whisker, fur, and faecal samples and performing dental and pelvic exams. As an aquatic biology student I collected water and core soil samples from various lakes around Tasmania. I then performed an isotopic analysis on the samples. How did you get your job in Australia? I moved to Australia after my second year of university, at that point I had just completed a basic biology course and some first year earth and ocean sciences, and I had only worked one biology-related job prior to this as a research assistant sorting invertebrate samples. It is safe to say I was not nearly as experienced as I am today. Basically, I really wanted to work as a research assistant at the University of Calgary during the summer because I was planning to head back home. So I looked on www.ratemyprofessors.com to see what students had thought about the biology or earth sciences professors. I grabbed some names and searched them up on the UofC website. I emailed two professors pouring my heart out about how badly I wanted to work as an ecologist and explained why I would make a good research assistant. Neither of them posted about wanting or needing a research assistant but I figured I might as well just go for it and hope for the best. The first professor to reply back to me ended up being my supervisor in Australia! My supervisor had previously taught at UofC while doing her Ph.D and then moved to Hobart, Australia to do her Post-doc at the University of Tasmania and said she could use an extra set of hands. I flew down to Australia 6 weeks later and began working as a wildlife biologist. Did you make a lot of money? Absolutely not. For the most part biology student tend not to make a lot of money while in school unless they're working for government organizations. Totally worth it though. Do you have any advice for young students? I'm in my last semester of my undergrad right now and I've learned my fair share of lessons, but I have three stand out pieces of advice. 1. Be Brave: Ask a professor if he/she needs a research assistant, volunteer with the grad student, apply for the scholarship. Don't hold yourself back because you don't have the perfect transcript, or you have no experience, just keep pushing through. 2. Don't Listen to Your Peers: I found people in my program to be my own worst enemies. I'm not talking about your close girlfriends, but a lot of peers are competing for the same jobs and are easily threatened because they're insecure and will try and bring you down. Do not listen to them. Just push through and keep applying. 3. Ask Questions. Ask people how they ended up where they are, ask your peers how they got their summer jobs, and ask supervisors how you can improve.
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