What the Next Generation of Fishery Scientists Will Need to Have in Their Toolbox

Conclusion & Discussion: The old adage is that if one becomes a jack of all trades, one becomes a master of none.  Yet how does one balance that against the need to: learn new skills during the course of one’s career, adapt to situations, and adopt new knowledge. How to offset the concern that if one learns how to use and only has a hammer, then everything looks like a nail?  Here I explore how to blend classical skills with some of the key, emerging needs for future fisheries scientists.  Certainly the usual topics will need to be mastered, including: Statistics and general quantitative abilities, Population and Community Dynamics, Taxonomy, Writing, Coding, Field work, and Biological, Ecological and Fishing theory.  But we also see an increasing need for the following tools and skills: Risk analysis, Decision analysis, Management Strategy Evaluation modeling, Stakeholder engagement and non-technical communication, Visualization capabilities, Coupled human-natural system modeling, Multivariate thinking and quantitative ability, and general comfort in inter-disciplinary contexts.  I discuss examples of how this blended learning can be accomplished.  The primary goal is to inculcate young professionals with the skills to become life-long learners, able to periodically restock their toolbox.