1. Course work
To prepare for a career in botany, you should take a college preparatory curriculum including: English, foreign language, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology. Courses in social studies and humanities are also valuable since botanists often get involved in public affairs at community and national levels.

2. Extracurricular activities
Other valuable experiences include participation in science fairs and science clubs. It also helps to have summer jobs or internships related to biology, such as working in parks, plant nurseries, farms, experiment stations, laboratories, camps, or for florists or landscape architects. Hobbies such as camping, photography, and computers are also useful.

3. Become informed
Get information on colleges and universities by writing to the Office of Admissions of each school you wish to consider and requesting a catalog describing school requirements, courses, and facilities. Your counselor or library may have some of these. Also ask for information about scholarships and other financial aid. Many schools do not have a separate department of botany or plant biology but instead have a department of biology that includes botanists. In any case, write, call, or better yet, visit the schools you are interested in and ask to meet with some of their botanists to discuss your career options and how they might help you to realize your goals. The Botanical Society of America office has a list of botanists' names, addresses and phone numbers from all areas of the country. Its address and telephone number are listed inside the back cover of this booklet.    (http://www.botany.org/bsa/careers/car-req.html)

​