"we will slowly lose the amateur entomologists"

[Mike Quinn]

>Mike Quinn wrote:
>
>>  It's my contention that the numbers of students persuing professional
>>  careers in entomology would have flattened out or dropped off with or
>>  without the increased interest in entomology by amateurs. The jobs just
>>  aren't out there due primarily to an ever increasing emphasis on molecular
>>  studies and the current march towards transgenic crops.
>
>> In short, of the very few students that I went to school with who got into
>> entomology because of an unfettered love of collecting, none were
>> lepidopterists.
>
>What  do you feel got Texas A & M students originally interested in
>entomology during their childhood or their teenage years ( i.e. amateur
>entomologist years)?  Was it consumptive-type activities such as swinging
>a net in the field and capturing, killing or otherwise manipulating
>insects or non-consumptive type activities such as just carrying a pair of
>binoculars into the field?  If the former, I wonder how their interest in
>entomology would have been affected if they had been discouraged from
>engaging in consumptive type activities during their amateur entomologist
>years?
>
>Paul Cherubini

The hard core field entomologists that I hung out with definitely got
started by collecting at an early age. But this group of students probably
represented less than 10% of the ento student body. Many others appeared to
have had little or no field experience of any kind. They mostly found their
way into entomology after getting a BS in biology. I never understood what
drove those who wanted to control insects...

Mike Quinn, Donna, TX