How to Become a Paleontologist
Between 2019 and 2022, an average of seven to nine permanent paleontology positions were advertised per year. Not per university. Per year, across the field.
Families spent an average of $34,019 on college last year. Almost nobody talks about the first number before committing to the second.
Sallie Mae and Ipsos, How America Pays for College 2026
Almost 400 students and parents came to the first one on October 15.
Pick the time you can make
Same class every time, live with Q&A. Can’t make the one you pick? We’ll move you to a later one. There’s no replay.
Tip: most people who miss a live class just forget. Tick the text reminder in the form and we’ll text you your link when it starts.
The number nobody gives you
What the measured job market looks like
PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY EMPLOYMENT COMMITTEE · TWO YEARS OF ANALYSIS DRAWING ON THE AMERICAN GEOSCIENCES INSTITUTE, THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, SIX PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES AND JOB BOARD ARCHIVES · PUBLISHED IN PALEOBIOLOGY, 2025 · OPEN ACCESS
Then add everyone who did not get a position last year, and the year before. One rough sign of how many that is: 2,600 members in the Unemployed and Underemployed Paleontologist Support Group, as of September 2026.
Before you register
Read this first
Your student is in college now, or heading there, and paleontology is the plan. You want to know what the training involves, what it costs, what the job market actually looks like, and what to do in the next twelve months.
You are the parent, trying to be supportive and honest at the same time. Only 38% of families ever discuss the starting salary for jobs in their student's field of study, and only 31% discussed who would be responsible for repaying the loans. If yours is in the other group, this hour is that conversation with the numbers in front of you.
Sallie Mae and Ipsos, How America Pays for College 2026
You are in the US or Canada, or studying somewhere else. This hour is geared toward US and Canadian schools, because that is the path I know best. If you are studying anywhere else, you are absolutely welcome too. International students also get our International Course Report, with specifics for your school, so you are not left translating my system into yours.
You want a talk about dinosaurs. Evan does that every day for free and you should go watch it. This hour is about the profession, not the animals.
Come as a pair
If you are in high school or college, we strongly encourage a parent or guardian to attend with you.
Especially if they are helping pay for your education. A good part of this hour is about money and time, and it goes much better when the person funding the decision hears the numbers first-hand instead of secondhand from you afterwards. One registration, two people, one screen is fine.
Running order
The hour, in order
The job market, and where the numbers come from
Seven to nine permanent positions advertised a year. Where that number comes from, what it counts, and what it leaves out.
How to decide what to take
There is no paleontology major at almost any school, so what you study is largely your own call. Most students make that call on instinct. There is a better way to decide, and it changes which classes are worth an elective slot.
What no course list can fix
Two things you cannot get from any class at any school, and what to do about them.
Then live Q and A
Geared toward US and Canadian schools. Studying somewhere else? The International Course Report adds the specifics for your school.
About the founder
Why him
Evan Jevnikar studied geology at the University of Kansas, then took a master's in biological sciences at NC State, working on tyrannosaur growth. He has years of fieldwork experience, including excavations of Nanotyrannus, Triceratops, Falcarius and much more.
He was going on to a doctorate. It was effectively settled.
Then a serious financial situation arrived while he was defending his thesis, and he could not afford to continue.
So he is not describing the employment numbers from outside them. He is one of the people inside them.
He went on to write Surviving Climate and Chaos and to build Daily Dino Guy, which reaches millions of people a month. Both were built on the training this hour is about.
Evan Jevnikar M.S. Biological Sciences
Seven to nine jobs a year is a fact about the field. What your student does about it is not.
One hour, free, and the numbers in front of you.
Save my seatWED OCT 28, 8 PM ET · FRI OCT 30, 8 PM ET · SAT OCT 31, 11 AM ET
FREE PRESENTATION + Q&A · LIVE ONLY, NO REPLAY