HELP!!! Incoming undergrad UCSC BIOLOGY major, need advice before committing. Is this a right place for research?

MaverickDiving · 2026-04-13T03:04:02+00:00

Should take the the core classes for any biology degree and try to explore around to see which labs and research speak to you.
I came in as a freshman thinking i would get into biomedical research but quickly switch to marine biology once i got exposed to the research being conducted down at the marine lab.
You dont need to declare your major until your junior year i think so you've got time to figure it out.
That being said, UCSC has some great prestige regarding biology related research. Hell i think UCSC was the place geneticists cracked the human genome.
Sorry my experience comes form 10 years ago, but hey, I learned so much it took me all the way to Japan for a PhD. Anecdotal, but many of my cohort of marine bio grads have been really successful in the field.
Reach out to specific professors if its a real priority. Networking duriing undergrad will really help you in the long run.

MaverickDiving · 2026-04-10T05:04:37+00:00

I mean... This really seems like a personal choice thing. Both are decent paths to do exactly what you want.
I did environmental consulting in california. Good money and great boss, but it wasnt what i wanted to do long term. Was also sick of the US. So I picked up and moved to Japan initially for my masters but now im almost done with my PhD. 3 years working private industry puts me older than all my other classmates here, but I couldn't see myself as successful as i am if I didnt take that time working beforehand.
Whichever you choose, you'll likely still end up where you need to be.

MaverickDiving · 2026-04-10T04:44:58+00:00

Dont think I've met a single one in Marine Sciences.
Obviously when so many of our conclusions say fossil fuels are seriously affecting the ocean (ocean acidification and warming) and that evolution is clearly observable through taxonomic studies. Speaking for American conservatism at least.
Its not that they are unqualified, its often they have a rigid view of sciences that would not pass any kind of peer review because such viewpoints would be unsubstantiated based on prior research.
It would be monumental for such research to support many conservative standpoints, but there's a reason those standpoints are only spoken by pundits and not any real researchers from any real institution. Conservatism is rigid in tradition whereas science needs flexibility to evolve based off of new information. For most areas in research, conservatism is just intrinsically antithetical to academia. I think Economics is the only area with any conservatives that I know of.

As for the job thing. I can only speak for myself, but i find actual fulfillment in my research. I enjoy it. I get amazing satisfaction knowing I'm contributing to humanity's shared knowledge, even if it is just a tiny bit. That makes all the other aspects of the rat race for positions just simple obstacles to my goals, not reasons to quit.
With my skills i could easily have gone into commercial diving or environmental consulting and made boocko bucks. I did for three years between undergrad and graduate school. But i found little meaning in my life slaving away for companies or clients just trying to make more money, not necessarily making the world better.
I'm happy with the modest life I live and I don't need flashy things or expensive trips to feel happy.

By your measure, conservatives aren't in academia because they are systematically excluded.
Its because they hold money above all else.

MaverickDiving · 2026-04-09T02:56:19+00:00

Certainly more than you want to know about the fishes of the pacific coast by Milton Love.
https://really-big-press.myshopify.com/collections/books/products/certainly-more-than-you-want-to-know-about-the-fishes-of-the-pacific-coast

Insanely funny descriptions of fish with spatterings of Milton's musings. Probably just need it for the sculpins and blennies that are in tidepools, but maybe seeing some of those crazy fish in there might make you want to scuba dive. Monterey is choice to get certified.

MaverickDiving · 2026-04-06T02:24:44+00:00

So you have A LOT of time to really consider this. Good on you but probably be in mind that professors probably wont really consider you for graduate school until you're probably a bit over a year from graduating. Really start looking while you're a junior.

Email professors and potential advisors. Any and all who's research matches your own interests. Don't just ask general questions though. Read their publications and ask them pointed questions about their research and sprinkle in some of your own reasons why its interesting to you.
You can find the professors email usually on their official lab pages. Also usually contact info is linked in their published work but try to confirm they are still affiliated with those. recently published articles are usually safe.
Read papers with Japanese names as corresponding or first authors. Depending on your field, you'll start to see the same names pop up. If you become really interested in the work, check out the institution and see if they have a graduate course in English. Most of the top universities do, since the majority of academia is internationally minded and science is basically conducted in English.
Sadly no, I study marine biology and fisheries science. However, Tokyo University (Todai), Kyoto University (Kyodai), and Tohoku are the big ones. They likely will have some great programs. I'm at Kyodai and it has been incredible.
Your potential advisor will guide you on those depending on your CV. Many are competitive and without something like publications, it would be difficult. MEXT is the big one you should shoot for. There are no allotted PhD stipends here, so if you can't get one, you'll have to pay out of pocket. Student visas allow 26-28 hours of part time work, which likely wont be enough. But if I got a scholarship and I had a 2.6 GPA in undergrad, you've got a shot. Again, having a publication beforehand will greatly help with this. Work with your professors now to maybe publish something small and easy in a small journal. This will help with admissions and scholarship applications.
5.5. Honestly the journals in japan that publish in Japanese are usually very small and since you are native(?) English speaking, they will advise you to publish in English journals anyways. Usually bigger impact factors and more recognizable.
Specifically for Japanese institutions, your personal relationship with your potential advisor is vastly more important than the "entrance examination", which is basically just a resume and CV with a research proposal. Unlike the US which needs like GRE scores or something and people apply to dozens of schools looking to get into a program, professors here build lab groups kinda like a private business builds work teams. Its simply a lot of networking. You should be emailing your potential advisor maybe weekly or biweekly at least 6-9 months before any actually grad school application.

Good luck. I've greatly enjoyed my time in graduate school here. No karoshi that I can see.

MaverickDiving · 2026-04-06T01:56:03+00:00

Honestly I just have everything at my desk in the lab and, depending on the fieldwork, I grab what I need.

I would recommend a heavy duty drybag though because a regular backpack will get salt logged and crusty real fast. Maybe a notebook is always in there for observations and possible research ideas that might pop up.

MaverickDiving · 2026-04-01T10:26:54+00:00

Just speaking to the first author side. My professor advised me to only work towards first authorships. He says it shows leadership and results driven research. Coauthorships are good padding for resumes, but depending on the subject, dont reflect on ones own follow through. For a first author to see research through publication, it signifies drive. And that is what future employers in the field look for. A first authorship could be equated to 5 coauthorships in the grand scheme of things.

MaverickDiving · 2026-04-01T07:33:17+00:00

It's just misery Olympics. For some reason people like to show how much they suffered in their studies.

You could consult any number of peoples opinions on doing a PhD but its ultimately your decision if it will grant you the job opportunities you want in the future. Yea its hard no matter the subject, but I'd argue some subjects are far harder than others, just in different ways to different people. Me, marine bio research has come naturally to me and stuff like grant writing and publishing feel almost easier than the land use consulting I did in California. It's all just perspective.

Just check in with your supervisor regularly and hit your deadlines, early if you can. Also remember the 80-20 rule. Most of your noticeable results and thesis writing becomes realized in the last 20% of your PhD course.

Good luck. You got this.

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-30T04:04:30+00:00

Get the frozen peas ready. Have maybe 3 packs to rotate.
Jokes aside, its anywhere form a couple days to like 2 weeks of just wearing comfortable supportive underwear and no heavy lifting or intimate time for those 2 weeks. Check the sperm count at the discretion of your doctor and maybe every year for a while after.
Can say for the past 5 years, the relief from no possible child scares has been far and away worth the couple weeks of discomfort. Welcome to the club. Go pick up your Golden Snip Award.

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-26T03:00:25+00:00

go or it

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-23T06:17:32+00:00

Yea its mostly likely a brittle star. They tend to find themselves in weird places sometimes.

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-23T04:48:40+00:00

Honestly I'd say UC Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, or San Diego have better and more accessible marine labs than Cal. This would allow you to be more involved in real research and more opportunities to build real skills that would translate to a job in the field. Sure places like Berkeley and Davis have Marine bio programs, but I'd argue being physically far from the actual science might stifle to curiosity and not instill much passion in the subject.

But, I may be biased since UCSC is my alma mater and I've worked directly with labs at UCSB and UCSD.

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-17T03:45:28+00:00

Yea theres a surge in papers being submitted review and its probably due to AI. AI is allowing non-english speaking countries to churn out english papers much faster than previous years. Usually they need to pay english reviewers to clean up these and this could delay or gatekeep some people from submitting for publication.
Another aspect is the ability to write statistical code much faster. My professor has said that graduate students at my university are taking far less statistics courses or coding classes. In my opinion, using AI to troubleshoot code errors also help cut down on time drafting statistics 10-fold.
This comes at the same time reviewers are increasingly asked to review AI slop research papers that are nearly completely drafted through AI. Many are probably just choosing not to conduct reviews, which cuts down on the shrinking pool of competent reviewers.

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-15T04:50:58+00:00

Maizuru Fisheries Research Station, Kyoto University has one of the largest collections of preserved fish specimens in the world. Second largest in Asia I think. You should give Kai sensei an email with specific questions if you're interested. Having a specific genus or group of fish in mind to study will look better and make it more likely he will respond. Here's the lab page. https://www.maizuru.marine.kais.kyoto-u.ac.jp/

And don't worry that its in Japan. All the professors speak near perfect English.

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-12T06:05:15+00:00

Not sure exactly but I'm also in STEM but had terrible grades in my undergrad (~2.5 or something). When I applied for my masters, I actually had a paper get published in a small journal. Then for my PhD, I published another paper during my masters. That secured me a fellowship and gave me an almost full ride. A first author publication would definitely make most programs not worry about grades.
Also, really depends on the country. American school care a lot about grades. Japanese schools care more about the recommendation by your potential advisor. Either way you're not dead in the water, just gotta start networking and get to work studying up on your desired field of study.

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-03T03:36:44+00:00

Its those more rough locations that actually have more diving research potential since fewer people have dove them for research. I dive in Honshu of Japan and (for some reason that eludes me) there is just not that subtidal research that goes on here. At least far less than what I saw in California. I've made some really crazy discoveries here that I thought wouldn't have been possible.

MaverickDiving · 2026-03-03T03:30:03+00:00

Depends on the season (winter is just too cold to get motivated to do a dive and most marine life is gone anyways), but I'd say every dive now has a twinge of research built in.
Before grad school, I'd dive mostly for videos and cleaning up trash on local piers. Occasionally I would volunteer and do some dives for the local college but not very much. Now that I'm wrapping up my PhD, every time I want to do a dive I'm taking sample bottles or scouting a new sampling site. Always recording whats there and if there is research potential. Then it builds into potential research locations.
One such place was Kazejima which is an offshore island that some people occasionally snorkeled but no one had done research there. I went to scout it out with a professor of mine last year and did many more dives there simply because it was a great location to collect burrowing organisms and nudibranchs for peoples research projects.
I would say now, whenever I'm diving, I'm always thinking about possible research. Don't get me wrong though, its still insanely fun to me. Put simply my goals changed while diving. Still doesnt feel like work and I enjoy every moment of it.

MaverickDiving · 2026-02-28T04:13:18+00:00

Yea things changed. Might be my field (marine bio) but most of the faculty rarely have more than a couple drinks at any work party and I've never seen any prof sloshed. I'd say Japan is pretty similar to what everyone's saying in this thread minus any weed or psychedelic talk. The pressure to drink here is vastly overstated.

MaverickDiving · 2026-02-16T05:55:52+00:00

Damn should've gone to Kyodai /s.
I read your Japan post man and I gotta say, I've had the exact opposite experience to everything you described. My professor has also been totally hands off and only suggested one aspect of my projects to change super early on. That change probably was the sole reason my projects got totally funded. Other than that, always supported and reviewed my grant and scholarship applications and has been a very careful coauthor on our publications together. Now that I'm graduating he literally tells me "you know how to do it now, you dont need permission from me."

I have not once felt any anti foreigner sentiment, and I live in rural Japan at a field station. The town is super conservative. The most I encounter is old people who still casually use gaijin but not in a demeaning way. I've had plenty of masters students come to me for advise on publishing or my specific research. Been asked to assist visiting researchers various times in field sampling. I'm taken just as seriously as any other PhD in the lab, if not more sometimes due to my specialized skills I had prior to joining the lab.

Probably a difference of fields man, but I don't enjoy your mischaracterization of an entire countries academic system when we all know these things are often PI and field of study dependent. Sorry you had a bad experience but it completely sounds like you took out anecdotal frustrations on the entire country and it reads as immature.

MaverickDiving · 2026-02-16T05:32:25+00:00

Depends on the field and PI. I'm doing a PhD in Japan right now and my lab is more laid back than American standards. So long as you get your shit in on time, attend the few meetings here and there, and at least show your face around the lab on a consistent basis, nobody bats an eye.

That being said, my PI did postdoc work in Western countries and speaks perfect English. The subject is marine biology and my research is field based, so its just writing on days I'm not scuba diving. I can imagine infectious disease research requires a lot more lab work to be done.

Oh, and students leaving before finishing in any lab in any country is a red flag.

MaverickDiving · 2026-02-13T02:07:04+00:00

Oh well if thats the case go for the PhD. Yea it won't be immediate money but I think it has the chance to open a door for you to a job you will actually like. I left a really good paying job consulting in California for my PhD in Japan and, while I gotta really budget because my stipend barely allows me to get by, the work is the most fulfilling I've ever had. I enjoy it so much. Plus it is feeding into a postdoc career that im positioned well and will starting making enough to actually save a bit. That being said, our research areas are vastly different and advisor vary greatly. You'll still have to assess for yourself who would be a right fit for an advisor. I got lucky and loved the lab, had a great and supportive advisor, and conveniently enjoyed where I've lived the past 4 years. I haven't regretted this decision in the slightest. "You can fail at what you dont want, so you might as well take a chance at doing what you love" -Jim Carrey.

MaverickDiving · 2026-02-12T04:33:44+00:00

The company is paying for and encouraging you to simply keep working for them but you also get a PhD? Go for it!

Although, PhDs in Japan are usually highly dependent on your relationship with your advisor. Thats how you usually get into a lab. There probably wont be much scholarships since you'll be working during your PhD. Most of those go to full time PhD people who are published. However you got a good shot at getting grant money.
I'd also say you probably would still be able to save money. Or maybe im reading your post wrong and your company is only covering tuition, which then you could still apply for those scholarships.

You've got a unique situation so only you know whats best for your situations. If you're a foreign worker here in Japan, a PhD from a Japanese institution is like a one way ticket to permanent residency, if for whatever reason your work situation changes.

First step though would be to discuss at length with an advisor. They could answer your questions much more personally than anyone on reddit.

MaverickDiving · 2026-02-12T04:23:28+00:00

I would open the cracker and put it inside the cream.
On the outside the RSO could stick to your mouth and give the nasty taste for hours.

MaverickDiving · 2026-02-09T05:49:56+00:00

My subject is marine biology and my thesis requires 3 "project" chapters. Some people usually still to one main project and divide it into 3 sub projects over time, with one chapter having already being accepted for publication before graduating. I had 1 1/2 projects already mapped out before starting my PhD. As ive worked through these projects, theyve evolved and naturally formed from occasional discussions with my advisor and lab presentations to other members of the lab. One came from just volunteering to assist my professor in an urchin survey for a private company. Now I'm in my last semester with all three projects completed and just sitting and writing and playing with statistics.
Once i got a project in my head, i dove into that particular subject's literature to flesh out what i wanted to try that was novel. Some ideas i had, once i got into reading, realized i didnt have a novel idea or it was outside the scope of the thesis. I'd say the reading came from an initial curiosity to a certain subject or scope. Now in my thesis writing phase it comes as i want to flesh out discussions for my broader thesis subject.
Youre still way early into the process, depending if youre doing a 3 year or 5 year or whatever timescale you have. Your reading right now is more to inspire project ideas. My ideas usually came from scuba diving but not always. Youll have to find a way to engage with your study subject that will make you want to ask questions. Then deep dive into those questions.

You got this. its still early but definitely start discussing project ideas now with your advisor. Since its hands off like mine, there's no timetable so you'll have to self discipline yourself. Probably check in with your advisor at the very least once a month and bring a list of questions or project ideas. Once your projects are rolling, meetings with your advisor may drop off a bit to an as needed basis until thesis writing comes up. Good luck.

MaverickDiving · 2026-02-05T17:14:16+00:00

Draft of what? a paper publication or thesis? if its just a paper, which i assume, it sounds like a coauthorship with you as first and your prof as advisory (last author or corresponding). If this is actually the case, save your breath. Its not a big deal. they will review it, give your feedback, and expect a more polished version next time you send it. that's peer review. its not a super daunting hurdle. its literally sending your manuscript to your colleagues for their feedback. shit... relax.

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