Also called: Museum Preparator
Carefully frees fossils from rock and repairs them for study and display.
In a glass-walled lab at a natural history museum, you use tiny air-powered chisels to clear rock from a dinosaur skull while visitors watch.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's in geology or biology, or on-the-job training and volunteer experience at museums.
Ways in: On-the-job training, 4-year college. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Geology, Biology, Museum Studies.
Growing about average. BLS does not project this specialty separately; rating estimated from related occupations.
Low risk for 10 years. Freeing fossils with tiny chisels in museum labs is painstaking handwork machines can't do.
Classes: Earth science, Biology, Art.
Official data: O*NET occupation 19-4099.
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