In an alternate reality I’m a scuba diving marine biologist. I hated biology in school, but I’ve always had a soft spot for fish. Now I think biology is cool and so I have some ragrets.

Scuba diving is something I’ve always wanted to do, but never put any effort into getting started. Thanks for nudging me in that direction.

Not sure if you're in the US, but once you get your Open Water certification, you might want to see if there's a university near you that offers the AAUS[1] scientific diving course. It can be a path for being able to do underwater research, but without necessarily need a biology or ecology degree. I'm finishing it up right now, and the last time I took a biology course was sophomore year of high school.

[1] https://www.aaus.org/

Cool, that sounds really interesting! Forgive me if this is easily Googleable (I couldn’t find it) but what do you do once you have your AAUS certification? Do you get a full time/part time job doing scientific dives for a university, or do you do volunteer research? Do you do your own research or help marine biologists do theirs?

It really depends! I'm currently on staff at a university, and some of my time moving forward will be allocated towards helping a research project that needs a diver with some instrumentation skills. I do know at least two people who have taken it that aren't officially part of the university, although they did have some ties (alumni or lived locally).

In general, you probably won't be doing your own research unless you enroll in a PhD program or somehow enlist some other folks to help you do some citizen science that you'll try to publish. Having the AAUS certification can definitely help in getting you a job at a university, if you're interested in that sort of thing, in which case you'll mostly likely work on whatever projects the group that hires you is doing. A word of caution; academic marine technicians are generally paid very little, especially compared to what a lot of the HN crowd seems used to making.

That's the "general answer"; an honest one is that it will really depend on the specifics of the university, their policies/approaches to diving, and your connection to that community in whatever form it takes. Hope this was helpful--my email's in my profile if you have more specific questions!

If you don't mind me asking, how long (1 semester? days/week?) is the course you're taking? For me, the closest location listed on the site is a university about 3 hours away. There's not a lot of info on their page, but it sounds like something I'd be interested in, if I could actually work around it.

If I'm remembering correctly, the requirements are something like 100-150 hours of coursework, plus around a dozen training dives; that gets you your basic certification. Past that point, as you get more practical experience, you're allowed to do deeper/more technical dives--it's not like exactly Open Water, where they functionally say "you're certified, go have fun and we'll never see you again!".

My first time through the course got disrupted by COVID, but I think the lion's share of the training happens over the course of 1.5-2 months of part-time.

Thanks! I did manage to find a little more info from the local university's site. Unfortunately that might not work out as they mention there's a wait-list and I'm not even currently enrolled.

I might have to check nearby states. It sounds do-able, though.

Ah, gotcha. It still might be worth adding your name to the waitlist--sometimes spots open up because students have to drop out. I'd honestly guess the biggest issue right now is COVID. Many (most?) universities are still being very strict about social distancing, and the nature of dive training has meant that the total number of trainees has been reduced significantly. Anyway, if I can answer any others questions, feel free to shoot me a message (email's in my profile)!

I think this points towards the inability of traditional schooling to engage kids in educational topics. I experienced something similiar where I bounced off math in school, partially because it was taught to me as rote memorization. Only years later did I realize how much I enjoy learning maths.

I had a love for biology even before programming, though it was kinda difficult to do anything with it outside or reading books I could on partially understand. Of course, even today I’m not sure I could stomach the salary they pay biologists and I’m even open to a pay cut to some degree.

Life sciences as a field is known for grueling repetitive manual labor and rock bottom wages (because so many people are passionate about life sciences). Traditional schooling has its flaws, but in the case of life science I would argue it goes the other way- students are dazzled by the cool parts and unaware of the slog after school.

I dive to see coral reefs that are not bleached yet.

I've been to many destinations that people rave about, and I realize they have no idea what a robust, alive, coral reef looks like. This trend will continue.

This hits close to home. I am the son of a marine biologist, and was I was a marine biologist myself. I grew up studying coral reef ecosystems is some of the most beautiful pristine locations in the Caribbean.

40ish years later, even in the most celebrated and remote areas of the Caribbean, nothing is the same.

To someone who has been diving for 10-20 years, sure, it looks like there are tons of fish and coral. But I can remember the reefs of my childhood. Compared to 40 years ago, everything is dead, empty, and covered in algae and fire coral.

People have no idea what we lost.

I can remember huge forests of Elkhorn coral, coming up in 40-60 feet of water, growing in colonies the size of city blocks. Schools of snapper that could fill boat after boat, and still look like giant underwater tornados. Black Grouper the size of dingys were a common sight, and pre-spearfishing would swim up to you unafraid. You can find some examples now, but what is considered exceptional today was the norm in years past. The density of life was astounding, and we'll never see it again in my lifetime.

I've heard the red sea is the same, faded glory. I've also heard that some more remote areas of the great barrier reef and parts of the south Pacific may be healthy. I've never been, so I can't comment.

I wonder what else we have lost.

Yes, the great barrier reef has some vestiges of this and you can find maps. The maps do show an impending doom though… but it is possible to reach some lively areas by boat from land in an hour or two. It is also easy to perceive the ecosystem imbalance on the way and there, you might see a turtle stuck at the surface because they ate a plastic bag instead of a jelly fish, you’ll likely see invasive star fish, its sad but you can see color and vibrant ecosystems…for now.

In comparison, other places I’ve seen around the world look like the bleached areas of the great barrier reef that are considered lost. It is really strange to me that people must just be so underexposed that any snorkeling or diving is satisfactory.

Nevermind 40 years, what might these areas have looked like 400 years ago? When did we start significantly changing the distribution of food pyramids?

Shifting baselines syndrome

but mostly dead coral reef syndrome

Replying 9 days later to share that I just signed up for scuba lessons, in part thanks to reading your comment!

Well,I imagine pretty much all marine researchers like scuba diving. But it only goes the one way. Most of us that like scuba diving will only be occasional visitors to the underwater world.