Molecular Biology Professor

Contrary to nursery rhymes, girls are not made of “sugar and spice and everything nice,” and boys are not made of “snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.” Instead, boys and girls — and for that matter, cats, dogs, whales, pigs, plants, amoebas, and every other living thing on earth — are made of particles of energy called atoms, groups of which are called molecules.

If that bores you, you should probably stick to nursery rhymes. If it excites you, however, you might have a future as a Molecular Biology Professor.

When you’re a Molecular Biology Professor, you’re employed by colleges and universities to teach the principles and practice of molecular biology, which is the study of living things at the molecular level, where DNA, RNA, and proteins serve as the building blocks of life.

Like all Professors, you’re a Teacher whose duties include advising students, planning curriculums, choosing textbooks, preparing syllabi, giving lectures, assigning homework, and grading exams. Because you’re training future Scientists, however, you don’t spend all day cooped up in a classroom; frequently, you work in a laboratory, designing and supervising experiments and research projects that give students an opportunity to explore the practical application of their academic knowledge.

Of course, you’re probably a practicing Molecular Biologist, too, which means when you’re not teaching, you’re doing genetic research in order to understand how genetic traits are coded and passed down by organisms to their offspring.

In layman’s terms, you make your living as a Molecular Biology professor studying — and teaching — the genetic origins of Dad’s baldness and Mom’s diabetes, among millions of other traits!