I went to a selective high school and wanted to get into molecular biology since I was 15. So I was fotunate enough to be in the right place from the start, and then just follow the obvious path. But even so, making it into a selctive high school (being smart for your age at 12) means nothing when it comes to commitement and dedication and rote memorization etc.
I was lucky to be in a good school, because with that, I coulda ctually focus at least a bit on studying enough so that I got good enough grades to get into Uni. I didnt get into the advanced course, I didnt even get high enough scores to get into 'biotechnology'. But I got enough for 'Science' (and for fun I chose to do a double degree in science and arts) and from there, I chose chose all of my subjects accordingly to make my specialistaion the Molecular Biology major.
From that point on...all I had to do was maintain pass average, or credit average to get into honours. If you want to do research, you need honours.(maybe USA has a different system, but honours for us is 1 year of research in a lab with a supervisor, and then a 70 page thesis on your research at the end of that year) From my experience, its hard enough to get any work in molecular biology with honours, let alone without honours. So you need to set your sights on getting at least that little step further than jsut the degree.
Now what i have learnt from this experience, is that contacts are important. In my case, the only reason I got into honours was because I got to know my supervisor somewhat ahead of time, and gave him the impression that i was a dedicated good stiudent with a keen interest in this topic. My marks sux (i regularly only got passes and actually had one pass conceded (46%), but he beleives that drive is more important in science than just marks. Lucky me.
Secondly, like wolfram said, START READING PAPERS. OMG. If only i learnt this sooner. In honours, I was forced to read hundreds of papers for my topic.... and god damn it felt good. For the first time ever, i UNDERSTOOD something. Not because I read a paper, or 10 papers, but because i read 20 or 30 on the one topic. After you read a few papers that are all talking about the same thing, you keep seeing the same terms, the same references, and some of the papers explain them better than others etc, and eventually you put the topic together in your head, and you can go back to the very first paper you read, which in the begining meant nothing and confused the hell out of you, and the second time around, every line in that paper is icnredibly meaningful.
If you start reading papers in your undergrad studies (find papers relevent to what you are studying at the time) then your exams will be easy, because you will understand the principles behind the questions. If need be, read next to your computer and have google open next to you while you read. Search for terms which you dont understand. I also find
http://www.onelook.com to be handy for definitions.
http://scholar.google.com is awesome. Particularly if you dont have access to papers, sometimes google finds them for you in places where you can access them.
Thirdly, USE imminst. I found imminst back when it was bjklein.com because at that time I was addicted to physicsforums.com. Finding physicsforum.com was one of the best things i did for my studies, because in my spare time i would learn stuff through forums. I would play in the biology and philosophy forums there, and I learnt so much abou evolution and a range of philosophies etc. And i did that INSTEAD of playing computer games etc which i would have otherwise been doing. If you get distracted as easily as I do, then get yourself distracted by things that help you learn what you want to learn. Imminst is the best place to learn things about ageing related biology.
Fourthly, a side note, I also found in my arts degree, that biology research itself is not the only way that you can partake in the continuation of understanding the problem of ageing. Philosophy, and studying the science of biology from the school of History and philosophy of science can be just as important. From those schools you can just as easily read scientific papers all day and theorize on what research is being done, what it means, what needs to be done etc. Although, if you wanted to do that, it would certainly help to have the scientific training as well, so that the papers are actually easier to read. Just a thought.
Sorry for saying so much, hope some of it helps.
