Salary
Average Salary: $74,504
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $3,110,393
How much money could a gene judge make, if a gene judge could judge genes? Well, it all depends on where and how you want to do it. If you slap the various roles of "geneticists" together into one big blob, then the national average salary smooths out to a cool $74,504 a year, or as we might say, Pretty-Darn-Good a year (source).
Still, despite us taking the time to type it out for you, that number doesn't really mean all that much. Are you working with hospitals as a specialist, using your understanding of genetics to evaluate and care for victims of genetic disease? If so, you're staring down an average annual payday of $187,200 (source). Spend your Monday to Friday interfacing with parents about their future baby's genes instead, and it's more like $67,432 (source). See what we're getting at here?
Like most jobs in science, your salary is going to be determined more by what you do with your knowledge than the knowledge itself. Don't believe us? Just ask Walter White.
The medical side of genetics is almost certain to earn you fatter stacks of cash, but will also involve a whole lot more education (cough tuition cough) to get there, and unlike Mr. Gregor Mendel, you probably won't be able to devote yourself to an order of monks in order to get it for free. That being said, other popular options, such as genetic counseling and professorship also take a lot of schoolin', so our advice would be for you to just follow your interests and go from there.