Re: A Career in Biology?

Awsome!  Biology is an incredible field of study, and I hope you decide on 
it, because we could always use more biologists.  As to your questions-
 "field biology" is a non-technical term, all branches of biology use 
field work in some form or another- zoologists might study whales in the 
field, or lions, or eagles, or even bacteria in a microscope.  What field 
you go to study is a matter of what biology you are studying, not being 
a "field" biologist.  All biologists are field biologists- some fields are 
the lab, some fields are the plains of africa.

If you want to do research more often then not, then the best thing to do 
is get your PhD, which takes a long time and is very competitive.  You 
could also work for a private company with just a bachelors degree in 
biology, but the field is very competitive.  Most pure research is done in 
the universities, so you would need to get a PhD.  I encourage you to 
think about that, but don't commit yourself to it until you've done a lot 
of college as an undergrad first.

To gain an edge, I would do as much field classes as possible inside your 
area of focus in college.  If you go into biology, you will probably 
choose a specific emphasis, like zoology or ecology, which is my field.  
Inside those disciplines you will have professors who are carrying on 
research of their own- tag along or take a field class if you can.  
Getting into grad school depends on everything you've done in the past, so 
fill the resume with field and class experience relating to the subjects 
you want to study.

Field biology is not a disciple- zoology and ecology and microbiology 
(etc) are.  Those disciplines involve field work- so you go into those 
THEN you do field work.

Dissections!  If you go into zoology you do quite a bit for physiology 
classes and anatomy classes.  I would guess you'll do at least 10- some 
whole animal ones, like pigs, and some little ones, like eyes or a heart.  
They aren't so bad, you get used to them after a while.  Schools will 
sometimes let you opt out of them if you want to, but they are really 
invaluable to learning things like that.

Thanks for asking, good luck!  And don't stress to much, you have a lot of 
time to decide.