No, my academic studies have been elective at the university level and independent.
Academic study of nature in general is interesting and rewarding and very informative but as any field biologist will tell you there's no substitute for observation in the wild for extended periods of time especially when the specie being observed is primarilly nocturnal. At my compound I've had the benefit of what amounts to years of field observation of the many species that live here and have learned things that one wouldn't find out by academic study alone.

I don't tend to want to keep animals captive as I did as a kid and into my 30's but moving back to the compound got me back to my root studies in the local wildlife and seeing an occasional mal-formed Gray Tree Frog out of several hundred froglets made me decide to take them in and see how well they could do when they'd otherwise be snacks for a variety of predators if left to strike out with their siblings. It's been great so far and since I began upgrading the compound to maximize the initial crop of all the Amphibians here I've hand-counted over 10,000 Toadlets or as I like to call them "Microtoads" and over 1,000 Gray Tree Froglets or as I call them "Micromints" successfully launched into the area in and around the compound. Over the last few years the local population of Gray Tree Frogs that participate in the yearly spawning chorus has increased beyond what I would have though the immediate acreage could support but they have also increased in areas as far as half a mile from the compound and beyond, so they have plenty of room to expand and the rainy years have been kind to them as well.