I dunno. Most of the marine biologists I know did it for fun. One actually works in marine biology, but she’s the exception (plus she has the requisite Phd).
Funny–From your Dopername, I always had you pegged as studying math or something allied to it. I thought your name had something to do with the mathematics of permutations, i.e. the b[sup]th[/sup] permutation, and you just put the extra i in to make it more pronounceable.