I have a bachelor's degree in biology and am trying to decide between two job opportunities. My long-term goal is to become a biologist, ideally in an aquatic or coastal field.
One opportunity is an aquatic technician position in coastal South Carolina, involving pond management, water quality, and aquatic system maintenance. The other is a fish culturist position at a state fish hatchery in Pennsylvania, involving raising fish, hatchery operations, and fish care.
I'm trying to figure out which job would give me more valuable experience and better opportunities to eventually move into a biologist position.
For those of you who work in biology, fisheries, ecology, or environmental science, which path do you think would be more beneficial long-term? I'm especially interested in which experience would be more transferable to other biology jobs and which might offer better opportunities to transition into research, fieldwork, or professional biologist positions.
I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have experience in either field or have made a similar career transition!

Hey, I realized as I’m winding down my engineering degree that I haven’t been honest with myself. I’m not really interested in the field of remediation and civil design. I understand that my degree in some aspects of the “environmental field,” will give me “options.” Especially if i did consulting to some degree,”. However, I realized I want a job where I get to s do research with wildlife management and conservation. This is kinda of my irkling. I feel like as I’ve gotten older I kinda sidelined my dream/ passion to just pick something I’m ehhh okay with. I understand that it’s easy to say this when I currently don’t have real big boy bills to pay. Or when I’m choosing between rent and food etc so a degree with a good ROI is worth it. I’m currently about to finish 85 credit hours of 130 at UGA. And I’m considering my options currently, if a take a plunge to switch. I wanna ask people in the field 3 questions. How long did it take to get your first permanent job in wildlife management and or research? How often did you have to cycle between seasonal jobs to become a competitive candidate in an already competitive field? And what do you currently do now for work in this field?