• Question: Did you want to be a scientist starting out so did you have to be fully committed to succeed into being a scientist?

    Asked by anon-257986 on 25 Jun 2020.
    • Photo: John Davies

      John Davies answered on 25 Jun 2020:

      I wanted to be an astronaut. In my day (erm the 1970s) to do this you needed to be either a jet pilot or a scientist astronaut. My eyes and reflexes were not good enough to be a jet pilot so after a few years working in an aeroplane factory I went back to science. I did a few temporary jobs (we call them post-docs) until I was in my early 30’s then, by good luck, a permanent job came up and I got it
      However that post-doc period can be pretty hard. You are young, maybe getting married, buying a house, maybe having kids. With no job security and only a 2 year contract you have to be pretty keen to stick at it and hope a permanent job comes along. Lots of people give up and get regular jobs in banks and stuff. I stuck at it and it worked out OK for me.

      BTW. I still want to be an astronaut.

    • Photo: Dipendra Mistry

      Dipendra Mistry answered on 26 Jun 2020:

      Hi,

      This is a good question. For me when I was very young I was interested in being many different things from an astronaut to a pilot to an engineer (which I am now).

      I think in either case it is important to study what you enjoy, take advice from friends/family/teachers and make your opinion. For me I enjoyed problem solving, reading about how science worked in the real world and watching Sci-Fi movies. But I didn’t connect the dots until Yr9 where I decided to focus more on science.

      Hope that helps,
      Dipendra

    • Photo: Georgia Harris

      Georgia Harris answered on 26 Jun 2020:

      Hey!
      +
      When I was probably aged 9-12 I wanted to be a classical guitarist and then I switched to wanting to be a painter. When up until I was in Year 12, I went to a taster day at the University of Oxford to learn about their Art programme! I never imagined myself being a scientist, but as I learnt more about the degree programmes, I found that I was way more excited to study Physics modules than art ones, as I felt there was too much pressure to be creative.
      +
      Even when I was at Uni I thought I would leave and join the art world or work with animals, but Physics just kept dragging me back in! (:
      I sometimes feel a bit inadequate or less dedicated than my colleagues who have loved science since they were young and knew it was their career, but everyone has a different journey!

    • Photo: Alex Leide

      Alex Leide answered on 26 Jun 2020: last edited 26 Jun 2020 4:22 pm

      After watching Time Team on TV I wanted to be an archaeologist or a historian. But I wasn’t very good at essays and reading massive books, and I was better at science, so ended up doing that at University. It’s quite common to change careers even after you do a PhD in something. I know people who had careers in totally different things before doing a PhD in some sort of science and becoming a full-time scientist.
      So you don’t have to commit to science from a young age to succeed, and if you change your mind that is absolutely fine too. It can be a stressful, time-consuming job which sometimes needs commitment, but I wouldn’t say I was fully committed to it. There’s a lot more to life than committing to your work!

    • Photo: Rachel Edwards

      Rachel Edwards answered on 26 Jun 2020:

      I started off wanting to be an artist or an architect, and then an astronaut (like several others here). It turned out I never grew tall enough to be an astronaut, so I started to get interested in science instead. I went to university to study physics because I found it interesting, but wasn’t sure what I’d do after. Then a PhD project came up in a field that looked interesting (and with someone I really wanted to work with, because he was super-enthusiastic), then a few research jobs, and then a lectureship…

    • Photo: Susan Cartwright

      Susan Cartwright answered on 29 Jun 2020:

      I wanted to be a scientist starting out, but no, you don’t have to be fully committed from the start. We have a PhD student at the moment who is 67! He got interested in science after he retired from a full career in IT. I had a PhD student who had spent several years as a brickie, having left school with no qualifications: he later joined Sheffield University through our Foundation Year scheme for students without the right A levels, and pursued a very successful career as a particle physicist/prgrammer before retiring a few years ago.

      I think that the point at which you DO have to be fully committed is when you decide to become a scientist. You need to work hard at your degree, and if you take the PhD route you have to be fully committed to that. You can bail out at any time, but science is a field in which it is hard to succeed without giving 100%.

Comments