Hi. Firstly, I love all of you.

Secondly, here is my situation. I am currently enrolled at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. You may have heard of it. Basically, I want to study cephalopods and I cannot do that here. I may want to transfer out for next year if I continue to be unsatisfied by my studies of Ancient Greek texts. I don't know if any of you have had a similiar experience, but what should I do? What are the best schools to pursue cephalopod studies in the US? I am not sure what other questions to ask, but I would just like some general advice if you can give it. All I can tell you for sure is that I am extremely, extremely passionate about cephalopods and I have to study them or my life will have been in vain.

Thank you.

Not sure about US colleges although the obvious ones leap to mind such as any associated with Woods Hole (Dr Hanlon has a lab there), University of Texas at Galveston (Drs Forsythe & Woods) Etc. Then of course down under you have The Institute of Anarctic and Southern Ocean Studies at the University of Tasmania, in Hobart (Dr Jackson, my supervisor :notworth: :notworth: ) or in Launceston (Dr Moltshaniwskyj) and then Auckland University of Technology (our own Dr O'Shea :notworth: ), University of Otago (which doesn't have world renown ceph scientists but are supportive {it does have ME!!!! :D :lol: })

Cheers

J

Oh and :welcome:

I can vouch for University of Texas at Galveston. Good marine biology program (i'm in it right now). Plus the National Resource Center for Cephalopods is in Galveston. I'm one of their college interns... they need lots of help to keep all those octopus, squid, cuttlefish and nautilus happy.

link to school: http://www.tamug.edu/index.html
link to NRCC: http://www.nrcc.utmb.edu/

heheh, i'll trade places with ya in annapolis! my boyfriend is a Naval Academy midshipman. :wink:

...and yes, I know what you mean. I have also gone through what I like to call the "mid-college crisis" where I start looking at other majors, collleges and careers.

I know that Cornell has a program by which students study at Woods Hole and/or a semester at sea. I bet other colleges have similar partnerships with Woods Hole and other labs.

Melissa

FAU (Florida Atlantic University) has a bunch of programs with HBOI (Harbor Branch Oceanagraphic Institute).... Personally, I was thinking about doing it this way: go to FAU for college (4-6+ years), do a bunch of graduate programs with HBOI, and once I had a good record there and was done with college, apply for a job at HBOI.

Arkansas or Iowa have great paleontology programs that specialize in cephalopods :D

Hey thanks guys! :D

Millersville University in Pennsylvania has a lab that has 8 bimacs and some cuttles. Head of that program is Dr. Jean Boal. I met a student from there at a PA petshop I frequent and I believe she is studying Marine Biology there and currently in the lab studying octopus and cuttlefish enrichment. I did a search and quite a bit comes up.

Carol