Leading paleontologists explain how to get every kid's dream job

[Buster's Uncle]

Leading paleontologists explain how to get every kid's dream job
Business Insider
By Rachel Gillett  4 hours ago



Paleontologists surveying the land. (Flickr/Capture The Uncapturable)



Paleontology may be one of the coolest careers to break into, but it's far from the easiest.

As Smithsonian Magazine and National Geographic writer Brian Switek laments, while some people develop other interests, quite a few "would-be" paleontologists simply didn't know where to start.

Luckily, Robert T. Bakker, author of "The Dinosaur Heresies," "Raptor Red," and "The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs," and curator of paleontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and Matthew T. Mossbrucker, director and curator of the Morrison Natural History Museum, and discoverer of the first baby Stegosaurus fossils, shed some light on how to get your start as a paleontologist during a recent Reddit AMA.

First, there are a few myths and misconceptions that need dispelling. The first is that paleontologists spend all their time digging for dinosaurs.

According to the University of California Museum of Paleontology website, "Paleontology is a rich field, imbued with a long and interesting past and an even more intriguing and hopeful future. Many people think paleontology is the study of fossils. In fact, paleontology is much more."

Paleontology is divided into various sub-disciplines including the study of microscopic fossils, fossil plants, invertebrate animal fossils, vertebrate fossils, and prehistoric human and proto-human fossils.

And as Bakker and Mossbrucker explain, there are many jobs you can hold within the paleontology field.

Bakker says most vertebrate paleontologists make a living teaching geology or anatomy. "A few lucky ones" get full time jobs working in a museum. Fossils are also a hot commodity right now, since scientists can use them to teach basic science literacy, so fossil-sleuth could be a lucrative route.

Generally, though, the pay isn't as much as you might hope.

"Doc [Bakker] always told me to 'marry money,'" Mossbrucker jokes. "Seriously though, this is a calling. Most of us live a monastic lifestyle, while some took his sage advice."



For some, spending time with this guy is worth the low pay. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)


After all this, if pursuing a career in paleontology is still your calling, Bakker and Mossbrucker have a couple tips before you pursue the required higher education:

1. The best way to begin a career in dinosaurology is to start young. Bakker suggests studying living animals at a zoo or in your own backyard, filming them, and then using photo prints to sketch in the bones.

"Find the nearest display of fossils — whether at the natural history museum, science center, or state/national park — and visit," Mossbrucker suggests. "While visiting, take a guided tour. Ask questions. Then, slow down, put the phone away and bask in the glory of the old dead things. Read the labels. (Seriously, nobody reads the labels...) and soak it all in."

2. The next step is to volunteer, preferably in a program at your nearest natural history museum with a paleontology department. This will provide a chance to experience various aspects of what paleontology is all about and explore undergraduate programs.

"Get involved with your local museum and get your hands dirty," Mossbrucker says.

"In museums where I work — one huge, two small — volunteers are essential," Bakker says. "They find most of the specimens and do most of the tour-guide duties. In exceptional cases, volunteers are so good that we move heaven and earth to get a salary for them. And succeed."

"This life is a calling and I'm grateful for every moment of it," Mossbrucker says of his job as a paleontologist. "I'm surrounded by interesting objects, curious people, and a constant stream of weirdness."


http://news.yahoo.com/leading-paleontologists-share-advice-breaking-201526195.html

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Uno?  Don't front; I know that not least of the reasons to say no is that you love the wife and kids, but BONEZ.

[Unorthodox]

Fossils aint bone, they is rock. 

[Unorthodox]

Besides, thought we covered that my dream job was being the guy that made bugs work like you wanted in movies.  Fascinated by the guy that did both Temple of doom and Arachnaphobia.  Saw plenty of behind the scenes stuff with him, met him, asked lots of questions...and now tend to freak people out by "talking" to bugs. 

That field has been extremely diminished with the advancement of CGI.  Much easier to get a computer to 'act' however you want. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Just thinking that this is not exactly something you'd hate.

But yeah, your dream job would be something more interactive/creative.

[Unorthodox]

Articulating the things at the museum would be fun.  Digging up bone shaped rocks in the desert, not so much. 

[Buster's Uncle]

You would SO rock as a museum curator in some area with a lot of display potential.

And you know you'd be good at the digging fieldwork, if not enjoying it.  You're meticulous and patient, and a thinker both deep and wide.

[Unorthodox]

I have a feeling my curating would look something like the display in the book The Relic.  (IIRC it has a bad movie based on it as well) 

Collection of superstitions from around the world. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I think you'd be AWESOME at that - possibly as fulfilling as the bug-wrangling - and I reckon you could live at home, depending on the local prospects...

[Unorthodox]

Sadly, local museums are nothing to write home about. 

There's a couple very small ones dedicated to dinosaurs.  The big natural history Museum would be the only one even theoretically possible to do something of that nature, but they more book national traveling exhibits than make their own. 

[Unorthodox]

I will say, the idea of an old 1800's style traveling oddity collection concept has long been in my wish list to do for Halloween.  Mixture of both real and faked oddities.  Fiji mermaid, petrified man, etc type stuff. 

[Buster's Uncle]

FIJI MERMAID!  Yes!  That is SO you we may have to rename it Uno mermaid.

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At this point, I'm only gone off into a nerd thought experiment, like when I try to make sense of stupid parts of Star Trek, so bear with me.  Not actually trying to talk you into anything.

I guess a commute to SLC would be too much?  I could totally see you curating (best EVAH) exibits if only you could talk someone into giving you a shot.  -Of course we ain't talking anything like aerospace money, I bet, but heckuvalot steadier work, museum staff politics permitting (I've no knowledge that there are politics, but, it being a field related to academia -and everybody knows about the politics THERE- it's the way I'd bet.)  Is there anything local where you could use your aerospace background as a foot in the door?  At least a plane museum, if not some modest rocketry? 

I think you could circumvent, somewhat, formal educational requirements (with anyone/place reasonable and flexible enough that you'd want to work) reasonably by the simple expedient of getting them to discuss the subjects that interest you at a little length.  I know about etymology [esp. bees and beekeeping, butterfly life cycles {educational potential there of the sort museums trying to reach children love}], pre-Columbian Mexican civilization and religion/rituals/art/temple architecture, horror movies and culture, and, of course, rocket science as fields off the top of my head where you've really done you homework and display advanced and sophisticated understanding and knowledge.  Of course you've got chops on paper to show for the etymology and rocket science...  Those two happen to be at the opposite ends of the spectrum for exhibit feasibility for modest museums, but much could still be done w/ rocketry through pictures and good placards and such, on the cheap, by someone who really knew the field...

[Unorthodox]

FIJI MERMAID!  Yes!  That is SO you we may have to rename it Uno mermaid.

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At this point, I'm only gone off into a nerd thought experiment, like when I try to make sense of stupid parts of Star Trek, so bear with me.  Not actually trying to talk you into anything.

I guess a commute to SLC would be too much? 

I was counting SLC.  Our museums just bring in a traveling exhibit and only 'keep' ones on Utah specific stuff. 

https://nhmu.utah.edu/museum/exhibits

There's another small one that brings in traveling displays as well, the rest are dino. 

I could totally see you curating (best EVAH) exibits if only you could talk someone into giving you a shot.  -Of course we ain't talking anything like aerospace money, I bet, but heckuvalot steadier work, museum staff politics permitting (I've no knowledge that there are politics, but, it being a field related to academia -and everybody knows about the politics THERE- it's the way I'd bet.)  Is there anything local where you could use your aerospace background as a foot in the door?  At least a plane museum, if not some modest rocketry?

The base has one, my neighbor runs it.  Not really interested.  Most my expertise is fight club rules.     

I think you could circumvent, somewhat, formal educational requirements (with anyone/place reasonable and flexible enough that you'd want to work) reasonably by the simple expedient of getting them to discuss the subjects that interest you at a little length.  I know about etymology [esp. bees and beekeeping, butterfly life cycles {educational potential there of the sort museums trying to reach children love}], pre-Columbian Mexican civilization and religion/rituals/art/temple architecture, horror movies and culture, and, of course, rocket science as fields off the top of my head where you've really done you homework and display advanced and sophisticated understanding and knowledge.  Of course you've got chops on paper to show for the etymology and rocket science...  Those two happen to be at the opposite ends of the spectrum for exhibit feasibility for modest museums, but much could still be done w/ rocketry through pictures and good placards and such, on the cheap, by someone who really knew the field...

The local university had my collection in their tiny museum, but it wasn't there when I took the kids last year.  In fact they had no insects at all.   

Hoping it's study material in a class somewhere, it was rather beautiful and extensive...shoulda taken pics when I had it.  16'x16' worth of display boxes packed to the gills. 

My mini ones at places of employment are always conversation pieces as well.  (I start one in each new office of things found in said office)

[Buster's Uncle]

A more practical suggestion I would make on these lines - full-time curator would tend be tough to get even for someone qualified on paper, I'd guess, but one-time deal outside consultant gigs might just be a horse of a different color.  Not least of the talents you would bring to bear is that you're a cheap SOB, and a resourceful improviser.  You could use that as a selling point should you decide to approach crappy little museum x about improving their inadequate exhibit of (whatever that's up your alley; as I mentioned, it's an impressively wide range) on a budget.  -That's so you your neighbors already are giving it the hairy eyeball and gossiping against it, and I ain't told them.

Why do it?  Squeeze them for a little gas money for doing a thing you'll enjoy that YOU didn't have to finance.  You hate it when people are stupid, when presentation you find obvious is done incompetently.  Crappy exhibits are bad for the childrens everywhere, and I done seen you doing magic for childrens at Talia's party, and if you don't love the childrens, I only THINK I know you.  (Yes, except the childrens what sux and you don't love - bet that's still not that many.)  You do little freakin' bug exhibits wherever they send you to work - the guy who does that and gave a really nice one to a school wants to do etymology displays for edumactional purposes of anyone who looks at bugz and wonders.

Project proposals (jiggered into academic-friendly rather than engineerese) you could do in your sleep - you read and write them nine to five, a week or more at a stretch, sometimes, I think.

So you don't know whether Allan Shepard preferred blondes or brunettes off-duty, and you can't talk about what you did at work last week - I still can't believe you couldn't make the base aerospace exhibit better pretty easily, if only you knew someone...

Just sayin'.