what uni does arachnology ?

[george dobson]

hi was just talking to my mum and we were wondering wether there was a uni where i could study arachnology once im older could any one help?

[herpzane]

I dont know mate but id also like to know. How cool would that be to study!

[joeyboy]

i really doubt their is an arachnology degree out there.

Your best bet would be doing something like zoology and in your 3rd yr doing something on T's for your dissertation.

Then you could do a masters degree in entomology(study of insects), the only place which offers that is Imperial college London. I'd assume even though it's entomology you might have the chance to do something about tarantulas in it..

[george dobson]

kk thanks joe

[Chaika]

Ok,.. I'm afraid that there is no quick answer here. If you want to study arachnids then there is almost certainly no UK university course that you can do at undergraduate level.

However, if you're serious about studying arachnids, what I would recommend is that you study for an undergraduate biology/zoology degree. You will need to look at course content carefully before you apply. Try and pick a university with a course that contains both animal physiology (this will usually include arthropods) and biochemistry.

Work hard! You will need at least a 2.1 and preferably a 1st for the next step.

Just before you graduate, look carefully at which research groups around the world are working on arachnids. There is a good chance of finding one where tarantulas and other arachnids are native animals, such as South America, the US, Asia. Contact someone in the group and see if you can get funding for a PhD or Masters project to work with them. There will be competition... so as someone suggested earlier, getting a GOOD Masters in entomology from Imperial would be a really good idea .

When you succeed and get a project, congratulations (!): you will now be doing bona fide research on arachnids, an area that really needs more work. The cool thing is that because there is actually relatively little known about even basic physiology/ecology of many arachnids (they are not popular subjects), there is an excellent chance that your contribution will make a huge difference in how much we know about these animals! You don't get this kind of impact in many other fields.

Once you get to this stage you will know what the next steps are


So there you are, it's not as easy as signing up for an arachnology course but it will work, if you want it and try hard enough. I am now at the end of this process finishing my PhD doing research on, not arachnids but birds, which is what I wanted to work on .

[george dobson]

thanks very much for that its very useful advice, and i saved it

[Chaika]

No problem Good luck and don't give up

[george dobson]

i have still got a phew more years until uni, im in year 10 at the moment but have been keeping spiders since i was 7 and thats what ive wanted to do

[Josh-sama]

Chaika that advice really is motivating and as I'm 15 myself, I've been speaking with CareersWales etc.

What sort of degrees am I looking needing for a zoology / entomology course?

A Level Biology & Chemistry I presume? (Physiology as mentioned?) I really love the idea of zoology, research on inverts etc.

[joeyboy]

Originally Posted by Josh-sama

Chaika that advice really is motivating and as I'm 15 myself, I've been speaking with CareersWales etc.

What sort of degrees am I looking needing for a zoology / entomology course?

A Level Biology & Chemistry I presume? (Physiology as mentioned?) I really love the idea of zoology, research on inverts etc.

well the zoology course is the degree...unless you meant A-levels there.

You don't necessarily need two science based A-levels, though it depends where you go obviously. You would need biology really which is pretty obvious.