Have you always wanted to be a scientist? If not, what made you change your mind?

Stuart Jenkins answered on 28 Apr 2020: last edited 28 Apr 2020 10:36 am

I didn’t always want to be a scientist, but it has always interested me. When I was at school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I knew I was pretty good at maths and science. So I pursued them at university, starting a physics undergraduate in 2014.

I very nearly left after I finished that in 2018. I enjoyed physics, but it wasn’t that exciting, and so I thought I might leave and find a job somewhere else. But then I happened to do some work one summer with a physicist working in climate change science, and found it really engaging. It was a mix of physics and applications in the real world that made me realise physics can be useful in the real world if you target the right questions.

Thats why I am where I am… a summer project with the right supervisor.

Sheila Kanani answered on 28 Apr 2020:

When I was little I wanted to be a vet, and I come from a very sciencey background because my parents are pharmacists and my sister is a GP and works for the NHS. I changed from vet to astronomy when I was about 13 and I saw a film called Apollo 13, based on true events. Watching that film changed my life forever!

Paula Koelemeijer answered on 28 Apr 2020:

To be fair, I didn’t even know it was a thing when I was little. In school, I took a lot of arts subjects and wanted to be a professional theatre player, then a primary school teacher.

I always enjoyed science and maths though, and when I thought about different subjects to study, I decided to go for Earth Sciences as that combined a lot of sciences. This may also have had something to do with the fact I liked volcanoes, earthquakes and rocks!

I still didn’t think of what job I would do with it, I studied it because I enjoyed it. As I have continued to enjoy the subjects, I continued to study and learn more, and now I can’t get enough of it!

It just shows you don’t need to know in advance necessarily what you do with your study, but choosing something you enjoy can be as important.

Arjuna James answered on 28 Apr 2020:

Nope, I tried my hand at a few things before finally ending up in science. I initially went to university and studied Actuarial Sciences, leading to a career in finance/insurance, but lost interest and dropped out after 2 years. I then got into music production, photography & videography and pursued those for around 3 years (mainly music production) before finally deciding to head back to university to study physics.
My change of heart about the first degree came about through a sudden lack of motivation/excitement about what I was doing/would be doing in the future if I continued on that path. My change of heart about music came about once I achieved my goal of making my own album/project, after that I just couldn’t see myself continuing it as a long-term career. Honestly speaking, it was science/space documentaries and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos that drew me to science/physics.

Kerrianne Harrington answered on 28 Apr 2020:

Definitely not! For most of my childhood I wanted to be some kind of mysterious explorer, like Indiana Jones. When I grew up enough to realize Hollywood had majorly lied to me about the action packed life style of your average archaeologist, I thought about being an artist or a writer. For my A-levels I took English Literature and Language as well as Fine Art with this in mind. I sort of fell in love with Physics and Maths at A-level because they had this sense of structure and puzzle solving to them, I found it calming and realized I wanted to keep doing. Even at University, I took a masters in Physics with no clear goal of wanting to be a scientist until I did a research project in my final year. Up until that point, I was just doing it because I enjoyed the challenge of it. I think that’s why I’m still doing science – to chase that challenge!

anon answered on 28 Apr 2020:

Pretty much. My favourite subject in school was physics. Sciences in general, but physics stood out by a margin. To break it down in stages:
1. The idea solidified in the end of high-school.
2. I looked for unis that had space physics and there were two at the time, so I applied – but it was just a “specialisation” in the general engineering physics programme.
3. By the end, I found a MSc thesis in space physics.
4. First steps on the researcher career – PhD in space physics.

But this was not a straight path, not by any means. Between each of these “stages” there was a very real possibility that I wouldn’t make it, or that there wouldn’t even be an opportunity (no funds, or no projects).
All this time I’ve had an approximate idea of what I want to do, and I strove to that. With time, this idea became more defined, which means both that I knew where to look better, but also that the choices were more limited.

John Davies answered on 28 Apr 2020:

I wanted be an astronaut (bear in mind I was 14 when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon). I tried to be a jet pilot but the RAF wouldn’t take me so I decided to be a Science astronaut (Payload specialist) on the Space Shuttle instead. I was good at chemistry at school so I did a Chemistry degree then a PhD. I also learned to fly and then got a job in an aeroplane factory. Then I worked on satellites and finally I became an astronomer. That seemed to be a good skill set so I waited and waited and waited but no jobs for British astronauts came up. When Tim Peake got the space station mission I was way too old. So yes, I wanted to be a science astronaut and while I never got that job, I had lot of fun along the journey.

Anne Green answered on 28 Apr 2020:

When I was at primary school I wanted to be an accountant. Because I liked maths and it was the only job I knew of which involved maths (none of my family or my friends’ families were scientists). I decided I wanted to be a scientist when I was 13 or 14, when I discovered astrophysics.

Susan Cartwright answered on 28 Apr 2020:

Yes, always did, and was not put off by generally not-very-good (with a couple of honourable exceptions) science teaching at school. It took me longer to settle on physics, and I still sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had opted for molecular biology (my second choice) instead. I think I was influenced by my father (an industrial chemist) though I wasn’t conscious of it at the time: I just remember ploughing my way singlemindedly through the science section at my local library (they gave up when I was 9 and issued me with an adult reader’s ticket). That’s actually what sparked my interest in science fiction: having read Isaac Asimov’s non-fiction I noticed that he also wrote fiction, and embarked on the Foundation trilogy.

Sean Collins answered on 28 Apr 2020:

I don’t think I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do when I grew up well into my last few years at school. Even as I started to think about going to university, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do. I was undecided to the point that I applied for undergraduate university positions where I could study piano performance in a conservatoire setting and also pursue a science degree (possible at a number of universities in the USA where I was went to school and university). I think it was at some point in my second or third year (of five years to do both undegraduate degrees) that I started to make up my mind that I wanted to be a research scientist. I only started to really know what that meant when I started working in research groups at my university doing research as an undergraduate student. I really enjoyed the work, and once I saw that doing that full time could be an option I didn’t want to do anything else. Some of my colleagues and friends from those research labs went on to work for chemical companies, pharmaceutical companies, and car manufacturers. It really helped me figure out that I wanted to work in university research by being able to talk to people who wanted to do that, too – especially where people were one or two steps ahead (PhD students when I was an undergraduate, postdocs when I was a PhD student). Talking to those people allowed me to see what kind of scientist I wanted to be.

Frances Staples answered on 28 Apr 2020: last edited 28 Apr 2020 4:55 pm

When I was growing up I wanted to be an archaeologist, I loved the idea of discovering treasures in the ground and wanted to be Indiana Jones. As a teenager I wanted to become an astronaut, and everyone laughed at me because they thought I was too old to want to be an astronaut 🙁 . I then realised that I can combine my love of space and discovery and became a space scientist!

Bethan Charles answered on 28 Apr 2020:

I always loved science, especially space, which is why I started a Physics and Astronomy degree. After a while, I actually discovered that I liked learning about the very small rather than the very big so switched to a degree focussing on quantum physics. However, I never believed I was good enough to be a scientist so I focussed on doing something else and ended up in an office job for a big company. It didn’t take me long to realise that you can’t just be good at your job, you also need to enjoy it. I enjoyed learning about science so I switched and made that my job. It’s hard work being a scientist, and I face bigger challenges than I did in my old job. But, it is much more worthwhile pursuing something you are passionate about.

Greg Wallace answered on 28 Apr 2020:

I was initially interested in science just because I was good at it, but it quickly became my passion. I’m always going to love the problem solving aspect of it and the creativity that requires.

Alex Leide answered on 28 Apr 2020:

I used to want to be an archaeologist, like in Time Team. When I tried archaeology it was quite difficult and I didn’t enjoy it much.
At school I was better at science than history, so I began to enjoy it more, then really enjoyed it at university

Lisa Hollands answered on 28 Apr 2020:

I knew I really liked science at school and thought that I might like a job where I could find out how things worked. I didn’t really know what sort of scientist I might like to be when I was at school, but at a careers fair I found out about materials science form a really enthusiastic university recruiter and thought well yes that involves physics and chemistry and sounds great. I was the first one in my family to go to University so it was a really big thing.

Holly Campbell answered on 28 Apr 2020:

Yes, always. From a young age so many areas of science fascinated me. I always thought it was important to answer the various questions I had about the world around me, and thus I ventured out on an adventure in science. I am lucky in that I get to do what I’m passionate about every day.
If you have come across something that has piqued your interest, I would definitely advise you to do a bit of research into it. You never know: that question you had may just turn into something that makes you happy forever.

Marios Kalomenopoulos answered on 28 Apr 2020:

Well, when I was young I was thinking of becoming some short of engineer, due to my dad. But growing older, I found engineering super applied (& boring, sorry to the engineers around). In contrast, at school, our physics teacher was explaining all these different phenomena in the world from simple physical principles and I’ve started realising that if you want to find answers to the most fundamental (and probably difficult) questions for the universe, physics is the way to go!

Lori-Ann Foley answered on 29 Apr 2020:

I always loved science and started to study it at university but then I changed my mind and studies archaeology instead. But after many years I went back to do a science degree and loved it so much that now I am studying for a PhD, researching the climate on Mars. It is sssooooo interesting! 🙂 So I kind of went from being Indiana Jones to Mr Spock. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Rob Long answered on 29 Apr 2020: last edited 29 Apr 2020 1:01 pm

When I was younger I wanted to be a paleontologist due to a love of dinosaurs (and likely being heavily influenced by one Ross Geller). However, I wasn’t very good in school and so for a long time I did not know what I wanted to do. I spent some time working as a mechanic because I liked cars and I was pretty good with my hands.

When I went to college to restart my education I had a phenomenal physics teacher from whom I gained a confidence and a passion for physics. As my academic journey went on and my exposure to science increased, it became clearer and clearer that doing science was the right choice for me!

Liza Sazonova answered on 30 Apr 2020: last edited 30 Apr 2020 2:12 pm

I probably thought of being the scientist for longest, since I was about 8. My dad liked science, and when we met up he always told me the coolest things, which made me want to be a scientist too. But I hesitated a lot and even changed my mind a few times. I almost decided to be a writer, an artist, a computer engineer, a videogame designed, and I even wanted to start up a cafe… there were lots of things!
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When I was 14, I wanted to be an astronaut so I decided to study astronomy 🙂 In hindsight, not a great choice if you want to go to space!
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I became really sure I want to be a scientist in the last year of my university degree. I took a part-time job doing some computer science, and it helped me realize just how much more I like working as a scientist. Science was more interesting, and the work style was much more similar to mine: I don’t like working in cubicles…
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Long story short, it’s totally fine to hesitate and change your mind sometimes! Trying different things can just make you more sure that one of them really fits you best 🙂

Megan Maunder answered on 5 May 2020:

I didn’t always want to be a scientist. For a long time I planned to study French and English at University and go into some kind of marketing, however, during my A-Levels I quickly realised that as much as language fascinated me, I hated studying literature and really enjoyed maths.

At university I learnt much more about applied mathematics and was fascinated by space weather. I then decided thatI wanted to learn more about it and that I liked research so I decided to pursue a career in science. There’s also a surprising amount of writing involved so it suits me well.

Chris Oliver answered on 7 May 2020:

I was very lucky because I had really inspiring science teachers in school. This meant that I wanted to be a scientist since I quite young. Because of this, I studied physics at university and now I am doing a PhD, which is how people learn to become scientists.

I still want to be a scientist, but an important thing I have learned is that there are lots of different kinds of scientist. Some scientists work in universities and answer really deep questions about the universe. Others work for companies and apply their knowledge to make new things we need in everyday life. Others work for the government and the NHS, and help the government decide how to run things.

This article says a bit more about how broad science really is: https://sciencecouncil.org/about-science/10-types-of-scientist/

Question: Have you always wanted to be a scientist? If not, what made you change your mind?

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