Surprisingly, Walt Disney's first version of the film went something like this—we're all grateful his creative team intervened. (Source)

A young, beautiful girl with dark hair and snow-white skin—let's call her "Snow White"—is strolling through the forest when suddenly an ugly old witch offers her a red apple. "Snow White" sweetly takes the apple and...immediately begins testing it for poison, as her toxicology degree trained her to do.

While this may not be the fairy tale we know and love, toxicology is just that: the science of poisons. Well...poisons, pesticides, pollutants, and chemicals. Biochemically-speaking, there's a lot of scary stuff out there in the world—and we don't mean evil queen-witches who are murderously jealous of your beauty. This kind of scary stuff can result in cancer, damage to your nervous system, birth defects, and reproductive problems. 

But you know what the scary stuff also results in? Jobs that pay about $80,000 a year (source). Hey, someone's got to take care of it. If you're good with science and not afraid to risk your life for the good of others, you might enjoy being a toxicologist.

 

Muahahahaha. Muahaha. Muaha. Ha. (Source)

In many ways, toxicologists are your average, ordinary, lab-dwelling biology or chemistry majors. You've seen them in the library, huddled with bleary eyes and cramping hands over their problem sets. They're totally inconspicuous, and yet...they clearly have a dark side. Why else would they choose to specialize in things that kill people and/or give them nasty burns and/or latent, undetected immunological diseases?

We're kidding; toxicologists do a lot of good for the world. After all, they're tackling issues relevant to our health and are striving to make things a little safer for humans, animals, and the world around them.

So you want to help—great. The only thing is that you can't just walk into a toxicology store and apply for a job. Why? First, we're pretty sure toxicology stores don't exist, so that's a pretty significant barrier. Second, there's some serious schooling you'll have to go through before you're ready for the workforce.

Since there are only a handful of undergrad toxicology programs in the U.S., most toxicologists slug their way through a four-year degree in either biology or chemistry. Then you're looking at several more years of school to get either a master's or PhD (in toxicology, of course).

Which graduate program is the right choice for you depends entirely on what kind of toxicology you want to practice. Toxicologists are in high demand as lab researchers, industrial product safety testers and inspectors, hospital workers, higher education teachers, and government and regulatory industry workers. 

Do you want to work in a lab or in a hospital? In an office or in a classroom? They've all got their pros and cons—but the pro that they all share is that you'll be working for the good of the world.

That's not to say that this job will be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. This is a tough gig to land, considering that you'll have to get at least a master's just to be qualified enough to apply. While there's plenty of demand for toxicologists (source), you'll still have to battle for grant money on the daily. Research, it turns out, isn't cheap.

The other thing that isn't cheap? Your life. When your job is to work with insanely dangerous materials, you always run the risk of exposing yourself, no matter how careful you are. And the results can be tragic.

Toxicology can be a matter of life or death. No fairytales here.

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