# Entomology



## shorty (Dec 19, 2008)

Lately, I have been pondering what I should do with the rest of my life. I am strongly considering studying entomology and finding work in this field someday down the road. What I am wondering is the following. Are there any entomologists here on the forums who have gone to college to become one, who make a living working in this field, and could help me by answering the following questions. First of all, what is required educationally? What kind of schools would I need to attend? What classes would I expect to take? What kind of jobs are available? Are there jobs within the field of entomology that specifically involve the study of the order Mantodea? There is nothing I'd like more than to turn one of my hobbies into a profession. Lastly, what kind of money would I expect to make. I wouldn't think it would be a very profitable career, but money isn't too important to me. If I could make anything doing what I love, I would be more than happy.


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## sablechapter (Dec 19, 2008)

Hey, I had this issue a while back, so I did some research on it.

If you're seriously going to go for entomology, the best school would be UC Davis. They have the best entomology program in the nation.

The major is going to require you to take many classes in the natural sciences area: bio, chem, and a bit of physics apart from the requirements needed to graduate. Also, it would be most profitable to attend graduate school and get a phd or something.

As for jobs, I went to talk to one of the professors there a while back, and she told me it would mostly be government jobs (pest control, agriculture), entomology forensics (a growing field right now, has only 1000 or so people doing this), or research (maybe for a company, or for a school being a professor). She also added that finding jobs in this field shouldn't be a problem, because she always gets letters from government programs saying that they want people.

Money-wise, I would expect it to be relatively low (maybe like 30-50k?) unless you make it big somehow, but as you said, this really shouldn't be that big of a problem. However, I'm only taking a stab at this, because I don't really have experience with this, so I can't really answer your other questions definitely.

Well, hope that helps you out. Definitely, do some research on this: look online, talk to people and really put yourself out there.

The more you plan ahead, the more ahead you'll be later on.


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## sablechapter (Dec 19, 2008)

oh, you can check out UC Davis's entomology website here:

http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/home.cfm


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## Hypoponera (Dec 19, 2008)

Hey Shorty,

It is always good to see someone take an interest in studying entomology. Those are some good questions that will be hard to answer. Most of the answers will depend on what you want to do. If you want to go into research, you will need a PhD. If you just want to work in the field and don't want to do a lot of your own research, then an MS or BS will do you just fine.

I have a BS in entomology from the Univ of Arizona. But the entomology department no longer offers a BA/BS program. And that may be a problem at other schools. If you intend to get an MS or PhD, then get your BS in general biology or biochemistry.

If you do opt for the BS, here are subjects I HAD to take:

General chem and Organic chem- 1yr each

General biology- 1 yr

General Physics- 1yr

Calculus- 1yr

Plant science- 1 sem

Those are your basic science requirements. I then had to take other biology classes off an approved class list. I took these, though there were many others to choose from:

Environmental biology, Animal genetics, Evolution, Marine Biology, each for 1 semester.

Now comes the classes you are probably most interested in. These are all the ento classes I took. I only needed to take about half of them. The others I took in place of a lot of the required biology classes. Each was one semester in length:

Fundamentals of Ento, Applied Ento, Insect Ecology, Aquatic Ento, Bee Biology &amp; Pollination, Insect Toxicology, Insect Behavior, Insect Systematics, Insect Neurobiology, Insect Morphology, and Agriculture and the Environment. A total of 38 credits. Again, there were others to choose from. I did use mantids in ALL my class projects and reports!

I am afraid that your desire to work with mantids will probably be done on your own time so to speak. Not much research is being done in the States with mantids.


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## kamakiri (Dec 19, 2008)

sablechapter said:


> Definitely, do some research on this: look online, *talk to people* and really put yourself out there.


Most important part IMO. But that was probably the thing that told _me_ that I wasn't going to be an entomologist.

Like any potential career, you should understand what your typical daily activities will be, and how often what you are doing will change (in a project to project way).


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## shorty (Dec 20, 2008)

Thank you, those who responded. Your information has helped me a great deal. I have to think things over very carefully as I decide if I want to further my education in this field, or pursue my other great passion, which is music. Whichever I choose will be a hard profession to make money with, especially the latter of the two, but money is far from important to me. I can always supplement with another job. Either profession will be very fulfilling to me. I am strongly considering the way of Entomology, and if I do, it will be a long journey as I would most likely go for the phd so I can have a better shot at having more choices with what career I choose.

Unfortunately, when I was in high school I absolutely hated it and barely graduated. It wasn't that the work was too difficult for me, rather, it just all seemed very irrelevant. And, of course, teenagers are invincible and think things will turn out regardless of what choices you make as an adolescent. You see, I wanted to be a professional drinker and drug addict in high school and spent more time practicing to be one than to do something productive.  So, now I have less choices as to what school I attend. I looked into it a bit and found out that I have a chance at getting into a decent school, but it will most likely require some community college beforehand.

Whatever I have to do, I am willing to do it to make money doing something I love. First thing I need to do is really look into what I'll be doing and what career I want to make out of Entomology. There were more possible careers than I initially thought. Those of you who have an education in Entomology, what do you do for a living, and do you enjoy it? Do you even have a career dealing with entomology?

Once again, thank you very much for your responses; much appreciated.


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## Hypoponera (Dec 20, 2008)

Hey Shorty,

There is nothing wrong with doing a couple years worth of community college work. I actually learned more from the classes I took at a community college then I did at the Univ of Arizona. The class sizes are MUUUUCH smaller and so the instructors actually care how you are doing. I did most of my general ed and basic sciences at a 2 year community college run by the Univ of Maryland in Germany. I then transferred to Arizona and jumped right into the Ento classes.

Work? Here is how things worked out for me:

Dec '92, graduated from UofA.

Spent 18 months as a lab tech working on termites for Forest Service

Joined USAF and trained in pest control, left after 4yrs

Went right to work for Terminix and stayed for 7 yrs

Became a stay at home dad in Jan '04 and been one ever since.

So, with the exception of the last "job", I have always been using my ento knowledge to stay gainfully employeed. Just not doing anything that will make me rich! But I enjoyed all those different jobs. I actually prefered doing the pest control to the lab tech. But I was never one who truely enjoyed working in a lab.


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## shorty (Dec 21, 2008)

> Work? Here is how things worked out for meec '92, graduated from UofA.
> 
> Spent 18 months as a lab tech working on termites for Forest Service
> 
> ...


What did the lab work consist of? Can you give specifics?

Thanks again, you've been a big help.


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## chun (Dec 21, 2008)

shorty said:


> Lately, I have been pondering what I should do with the rest of my life. I am strongly considering studying entomology and finding work in this field someday down the road. What I am wondering is the following. Are there any entomologists here on the forums who have gone to college to become one, who make a living working in this field, and could help me by answering the following questions. First of all, what is required educationally? What kind of schools would I need to attend? What classes would I expect to take? What kind of jobs are available? a profession. Lastly, what kind of money would I expect to make. I wouldn't think it would be a very profitable career, but money isn't too important to me. If I could make anything doing what I love, I would be more than happy.


Hi there, i would like to say i am enjoying my Msc in Applied Entomology at the moment very much despite the quite intense workload. The education and requirements for the course have been covered on this thread so i'm not going to bore you any further (also i'm not familiar with the state's educational system).

"Are there jobs within the field of entomology that specifically involve the study of the order Mantodea? There is nothing I'd like more than to turn one of my hobbies into "

Personally, i think entomology is very important; applicable to the welfare of human health (medical and veterinary entomology), the economy (agriculture), conservation and forensic investigation. I think what puts people off pursuing a career in entomology is the lack of money involved in this field, but there's quite alot of money involved in agriculture, in particular, crop protection, it really depends on what you're interested in. Also even if you are formally trained as an entomologist, you are required to know about other aspects of biology, ecology, chemistry, sociology, politics etc, it's a very mutidisciplinary subject. It's good that keeping mantids has inspired you in an entomological career, but to be honest and awfully blunt, there isn't alot of money involved in studying mantids and it would be very hard to have a career just by specialising on mantids. Entomology isnt really worth it if all you just want to study are mantids. But if you're willing to learn about other areas of entomology, then definitely go for it.

Personally. i'm interested in sustainable/safe application of pesticide and intergrated pest management, and would like to be more involved with applied field work than research, although i might have to get a phD in order to gain experience and 'marketibility'. As you could have probably guessed, a career in entomology can be rather daunting and competitive, let's see what happens in the next few years  What got me wanting to pursue a career in entomology in particular crop protection and pest control is the potential to make a difference in agriculture; balancing sustainability, conservation and human interests such as improving crop quality/yield and thus profits. Controlling pests in a field is a challenge and convincing farmers to do what you say is another harder challenge. Also, most importantly, most pest controlling efforts are needed in tropical countries  

I'm not trying to put you off entomology, if anything, i want to inspire you to pursue it but from a more realistic direction. Hope this helps (sorry if this is badly written, i'm having one of those 'brain dead' moment today).


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## Hypoponera (Dec 21, 2008)

Hey Chun,

Go to Arizona! Bio-control, cultural control etc are big fields of research there. Plenty of openings for applied field work. And you could work on that PhD at the same time.


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## Hypoponera (Dec 21, 2008)

Hey shorty,

The lab work was OK. I just worked for an odd researcher. And, like Chun, I prefer to do field work. Being stuck in a lab is just plain boring to me!

I spent a great deal of my time building equipment for future experiments.

In the field, I placed bait stations. I then went back and collected the termites found in the stations and marked their locations on the map. In the lab I would do aggression tests and use the info to plot colony boundries. A month later, I'd do it again to see if the boundries had changed.


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