This is my first time checking out and posting on the kingsnake.com forums.
This is a question that is commonly asked. I get e-mails on this a lot so here is an article I wrote on my site to help people become herpetologists and how they should prepare for it. There are also three other links on there written by other herpetologists. These links helped me a lot and I figure others will need them too. http://snakeman1982.com/Herpetologistarticle.asp

Hope this helps,
Robert Jadin
www.snakeman1982.com