When did you begin to feel like a Biologist?
Ask a Biologist Monday 5/30/22
Answers from Biologists:
When I started doing well at my first permanent job (age 29). Sometimes it takes a bit!
Graduate school and when getting the job with that title.
When people saw me as the go to for bug questions and general plant/animal ID.
When I was handed a project with no SOP and basically no training and told to figure it out.
When I started to see success and collaborate with successful peers.
When I got my first non-tech job and start working with like-minded people.
In grad school when someone gave me bad advice and I said “I don’t think so”.
Not even after getting a permanent full time job.
When I passed my state DNR malacologist test even though I’d done Bio for 10 years.
When I successfully collected my first blood sample from a nestling in grad school.
When I had expertise in my subject and without it I wouldn’t have been able to do my job.
When I got my first full-time permanent position.
When I landed my first job as a biologist after grad school.
When I could ID birds my bosses couldn’t.
First field trip. A handful of equipment, no idea what that was.
When I was a toddler catching frogs and snakes with my mom and she called me her biologist.
When you included me in your biologist artist gift guide.
When other biologists lifted me up and pointed to me as an expert in things.
When undergrads started to treat me as a mentor.
When I started handling animals and bleeding and I was really good at it.
My second or third tech position working with birds.
Whenever a layperson is wrong about something. I learned in college that I can correct them.
About a year into my first permanent full time biologist job. Age 33.
Third summer undergrad, designed and enacted a wildflower project.
When people would ask what I do professionally and then get quiet to hear what I have to say.
Haven’t felt it yet.
On my way to my first field day of my job when I realized little me would be proud.
When I could stand in front of a room of people and confidently explain my work and answer questions.
First summer field season doing my first independent research.
Getting a paper published. Although it still feels weird since I only have a BS.
When coworkers or techs started coming to me for questions.
My first field tech job.
When I was doing research at a field site an then hearing it was getting submitted for publication.
When I started writing a book and realized that I needed to call myself a biologist (not student) to fix the title.
A colleague casually referred to my crew and I as such and I finally allowed myself to own it.
When I first measured a bat as an undergrad technician. It felt like destiny, as corny as that may seem.
First lab job out of college.
