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I want to be a Palaeontologist what should I learn for this?

I want to become a dinosaur researcher . #science

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Clarissa’s Answer

Paleontology is a cool field, it’s actually a sub-discipline of geology! You need to get a bachelors degree in geology. You can find a university that offers paleontology classes, lots of them have it as part of their geology program. You can also become a research assistant for paleontology at a museum or at the university while you’re in school. After that, if you want you can get a masters degree and do a thesis. If you want do a research then you would need a PhD, otherwise a masters degree would be fine. Lots of people actually hire paleontologist. Oil companies are one of the big employers, they need paleontologists to identify fossils they find when they do exploration for oil and gas. You could also become a private consultant.

I took a paleontology class as part of the geology program at ASU and it was super cool and fun! Some universities offer more paleontology classes then others so you would have to look up the geology program for the different universities and decide which ones have what you want.

Clarissa recommends the following next steps:

Bachelors degree in geology
Become a research assist for a museum or at the university
Masters degree with a thesis
PhD (if you want to do research)
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Deron’s Answer

First you have to be willing to be a student for a long time.
Paleontologists usually attend undergrad, graduate and PHD prior to actively working as a professional in that field.

You should decide the best university that offers the specific science (Geology/Biology, ect) you're interested in.
Your masters study should focus on Paleontology.
Your post graduate study should focus on possibly: Evolutionary Bio, Geology Exploration, Earth Science or Geophysics.
Doctorate should be in something similar to your Masters.
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Dr. James’s Answer

I found a site that should answer your question. It also breaks down pay.
https://www.environmentalscience.org/career/paleontologist#:~:text=Aspiring%20paleontologists%20should%20have%20extensive%20knowledge%20of%20biology,statistics%2C%20and%20computer%20science%20are%20also%20very%20important.
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Aaron’s Answer

Hi Sakthikumar, this is great! Paleontology is often a specialized geologist. You can enter a geology program at a university and take electives in paleontology. From here, it kind of depends on what you want to do. If you want to go academic then obviously you can go get a masters OR PhD in paleontology with some sort of extra emphasis. If you want to go career, you can get a job in mining for example after just your B.S. Often consulting is looking for at least a masters. Oil industries tend to stress at least a masters. Some years back Chevron for example would only take PhD's. However, I got into mining with just my B.S.

It sounds like you specifically want to just focus on dinosaurs though so maybe you're going more academic?

Aaron recommends the following next steps:

Find a university that has strong paleontology support (example: BYU has their own paleontology museum managed directly by the students)
Study Bachelors of Science Geology and take Paleontology electives and get a Professor in Paleontology to mentor you
Decide if you want higher education based on the career path you want
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