How to Become a Botanist

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to answer the question how to become a botanist. So a botanist is someone that studies plants and that's everything to do with plants whether it's the growing stages, different types of chemicals or fertilizers or the actual DNA of a plant. They could naming new plants or they could be studying ways to conserve and save rare plants or also right now a big trend in botany is saving and actually eliminating a lot of invasive weeds because they are becoming such a problem. So anyway could become a botanist and you can get a PHD in horticulture or botany. There's all types of programs and usually if you get a PHD you're going to actually do research or teach on the subject. Or you can just get a master's degree or a bachelor's degree in horticulture and there's a lot of people that are studying the genetics of plants or the frost tolerance. So to become a botanist you need to really figure out what category or what types of plants you want to study and to really follow your dream. So botany covers lots of subjects whether it's insects or plants or genetics or actual science or water or conservation, there's lots of different parts that you can study. And so by having a rounded background is very important too because it's all related and the best thing you can do is to do your research and check out all the colleges and universities and what they offer and really go with your dream. If you want to produce a new crocosmia that's fragrant and you want to cross different plants to get that then go with the genetics. If you want to conserve plants that are rare or learn how to add to DNA to make them more frost hardy for example, then you can study that. So whatever you study, it's very rewarding and plants are such a wonderful subject. Botanists are very important to the future of man. So whatever you study to become a botanist, you will find it a very rewarding career."