What made you want to become a scientist?

Ashleigh Barron answered on 4 Jun 2020:

When I was at High School Physics was my favourite subject, helped by an great teacher I had at the time. When it came to deciding what to study at university it felt like the most obvious choice for me. My parents were wanting me to choose something that had a more defined career path so I opted for the Physics with secondary teaching course. Whilst I was at uni I discovered that teaching wasn’t for me but that I really loved the practical side of things and that lab work and research wasn’t just for the top brainy people, that I could do it too. I really liked the optics and laser courses the most so I did a specialised masters in this and during the masters project I got to work in a laser lab in a company. It was doing the project and the people that I met and worked with during it that inspired me to follow that career path so after my masters I did a PhD and then got a job working in a laser lab in a company after I graduated.

James Smallcombe answered on 4 Jun 2020:

I was lucky enough to grow up around a lot of scientists, combined with a general love of sci-fi I always considered science as an option. A good teacher gave me a push to go for a physics degree and while there I got a taste or real research at a small accelerator. I realised I was good at it and this was what I wanted to do.

Joel Goldstein answered on 4 Jun 2020:

I read lots of popular science books as a kid, probably from the age of 11 or 12. I liked reading about other subjects (especially history) too, but something about science stuck – particularly the idea of exploring the laws of nature and discovering the secrets of how the universe worked.

And since then, I have just not found anything that seemed as interesting.

Lori-Ann Foley answered on 4 Jun 2020:

I wanted to be a scientist because I like knowing how things work – from the microwave oven to the universe! I tried other things (archaeology, banking, law) but I came back to study science because it was so interesting. I think a rainbow is even more amazing when you know how it is being formed. And when I look at a flower I think how different they look to bees and butterflies compared to how I see them and that makes them even more beautiful. The whole world is more interesting when you know how things happen. And I love finding that out.

Georgia Harris answered on 4 Jun 2020: last edited 4 Jun 2020 9:55 am

I actually didn’t think much about my career at school and just stuck to subjects I loved! I think this helped me as, unfortunately, I didn’t have an inspirational science teacher & didn’t come across any scientists growing up. I found myself doing A-Levels in Physics, Maths, Fine Art & English, lots of possibilities. I actually saw myself being a painter & wanted to study Fine Art at uni!

+
I soon realised that the constant pressure to be creative would’ve been too much for me and I even told a teacher that I would do math & physics in my free time between studying Art because I loved it so much! I ended up attending Oxford’s summer school UNIQ where I spent “a week in the life of a physics student”. I found that, even though it would be hard, I was up for the challenge and a scientist doesn’t have to be a certain person with a certain background!

Oliver Brown answered on 4 Jun 2020:

Too much time spent watching Star Trek and Waking the Dead when I was younger! I’d always had a hands-on interest in technology when I was younger, and enjoyed learning more about electronics in Physics. From there I just kept following the things I enjoyed doing!

Susan Cartwright answered on 4 Jun 2020:

I’m not sure that there was just one thing. My father was a scientist (an industrial chemist), and I suspect he may have had something to do with it, though I certainly didn’t feel pressured. I always liked finding things out, and science is all about finding things out. And there were things happening when I was young that made physics and astronomy, in particular, seem very exciting: I was 10 when Armstrong and Aldrin first walked on the Moon, and in my teens when the modern Standard Model of particle physics was put together in the mid 1970s. I always wanted to be a scientist, even before I really knew what that meant: what drew me to physics was that it had a lot of maths (I liked maths) and less arbitrary remembering of facts (I have a good memory, but just memorising stuff is not interesting) than biology and chemistry.

Sarah-May Gould answered on 5 Jun 2020:

I think I ~was~ a scientist before I decided to become one. My best friend persuaded me to take physics rather than another subject at A-level – I think she could see I really enjoyed it before I did. Then when I was thinking about university it felt pretty natural to do science because I liked it and it had good career options.
–
Also, I’ve always been someone who liked to understand how the world around me works, and to keep asking “why” until I get to the real sciencey answer… I think that’s what being a scientist is really, rather than any job title or career choice.

Anne Green answered on 5 Jun 2020:

At school I really enjoyed (and was good at) maths. However I wanted to use maths to solve problems and understand things, rather than just doing maths for the sake of it. I discovered cosmology in my teens through popular science books and TV documentaries. The idea of trying to understand what the Universe is made of and its history really appealed to me.

Paola Ricciardi answered on 8 Jun 2020:

I have always enjoyed maths and had amazing maths+science teachers at secondary school – so studying physics felt like an ‘obvious’ choice (although I also wanted to study geology and philosophy, and be an interpreter and…. lots of other things). I have always been curious and science has helped satisfy my curiosity.

Question: What made you want to become a scientist?

Comments