How to Become a Horticulturist

Horticulturists are specialists in the large-scale growing of fruits, vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants. Many of these individuals also become successful landscape designers. Depending on the responsibilities of the job, minimum education requirements range from a two-year college degree to a Ph.D.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• College Catalogs And Applications
• Career Counseling
• Online Career Search

1. Spend high school summer vacations working in greenhouses, florist shops, plant nurseries or landscape design firms.
2. Conduct informational interviews with the managers of horticulture-related businesses. Find out about their hiring plans for the near future and about educational requirements for entry-level positions.
3. Peruse the American Society for Horticultural Science Web site (ashs.org) for additional information about the field. The site includes links to undergraduate horticultural clubs and jobs.
4. Apply to colleges offering degrees in horticulture. Review horticultural degree information in the Petersons.com and Princeton Review Web sites (review.com).
5. Decide which horticultural specialty is right for you and plan your degree work accordingly. Ask your guidance counselor for a list of classes to take, and ask whether a master's degree will be required. Possible specialties include pomology (fruit production), olericulture (vegetable production), floriculture (flower production), nursery crop production and landscaping.
6. Expect to take courses in math, biology and chemistry, in addition to horticulture. Courses in writing and verbal communication skills are also required, as is a working knowledge of related software programs.
7. Make certain you obtain internships or participate in university co-op programs while in college to get a close-up view of what a particular horticultural specialty entails. The contacts you make there might lead to a full-time job after you graduate.

Tips & Warnings

• Realize that advancement in the field depends in large part on your degree. Just because you might get hired for an entry-level position does not mean you will automatically become a candidate for eventual advancement.
• It is possible to design your career to suit your desired work setting, since the field encompasses lab work, outdoor work, greenhouse work and classroom teaching.