• Question: how did you know you wanted to become a scientist?

    Asked by Lucayyy to Craig, Devon, Marta, Natalie, Nicholas on 6 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by Em, JeffMc, La Joviale, 798rgah32.
    • Photo: Marta Varela

      Marta Varela answered on 6 Mar 2017:

      I don’t think there was a specific moment in time where I knew I wanted to be a scientist. I was always weighing up different career options… Should I be a writer? Should I be a doctor? What about teaching?

      In the end being a scientist won it for me, because I was so keen on learning more about how things worked. It also meant I had a varied job: I could do some teaching, travel to attend conferences and chat to other scientists, write scientific articles and small books and even write my own computer games! So far, I have never regretted my career choice.

      Would you like to become a scientist, you think?

    • Photo: Devon Smith

      Devon Smith answered on 6 Mar 2017:

      I think I knew I wanted to become a scientist during my A Level Biology classes, when I found myself always wanting to know more than what I was being taught. I also realised that I quite like to analyse things, really think about them in great detail. And these are very fundamental skills that you need to be a scientist.

    • Photo: Natalie Doig

      Natalie Doig answered on 6 Mar 2017:

      It took me a long time to realise that is what I wanted. I did not know until I was in University. Partly I think that I didn’t know I wanted to be a scientist because I did not know it was a possibility. I did not know any scientists or had any exposure to it. I did always enjoy science in school, especially the practical stuff – and then at University I realised that there are so many unanswered questions in science and I just wanted to be a part of that. And then I just sort of kept pursuing what was interesting to me.

    • Photo: Nicholas Younger

      Nicholas Younger answered on 7 Mar 2017:

      I was in my Human Biology class at school and we were learning about how cells make energy from food, and my teacher said it was really complicated and if you went to university you would learn all about it in detail…and I decided there and then that I wanted to know more and that uni was the place for me. After I started my degree I loved it so much and had so many more questions that didn’t have answers that I decided to become a scientist so I could answer them myself.

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