• Question: How did you become a scientist?

    Asked by 08kstewartwilkin41 to Carys, Chris, Jeremy, Katherine, Simone on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Carys Cook

      Carys Cook answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      By going to school, and discovering that the subject I was most interested in and was best at was geography. I wanted to be a vet for years and years, but was not clever enough to get the grades. I was always very interested in nature and dinosaurs and volcanos and stuff like that when I was a kid, so it was very natural for me to want to learn more about our planet and our place in it….under the encouragement of my geography teacher, I decided to apply to university to study ‘Earth Sciences’, and I managed to get onto a course in Cardiff University, in Wales. After I finished, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I went to work in restaurants and pubs and shops, for three years. The whole time, I kept thinking to myself how I could get a job that really means something – so I went to work at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge where I helped scientists study climate change. I loved it so much, it was such a cool job, and the scientists I worked with were so interesting. So, I decided that I would apply for a PhD, which is basically the next level up from a university degree – having a PhD significantly increases your chances of doing really cool work, and I was very lucky to get a place at Imperial College University two years ago. I have another 2 years of my PhD left, and I am loving it so much! I get to do such cool stuff, and meet amazing people and travel to amazing places!

    • Photo: Katherine Jones

      Katherine Jones answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      In some ways, a bit by accident! When I was at school, I liked biology and chemistry, so I carried on studying them until my A levels. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do as a job, but because chemistry was my favourite subject I decided to do it at university.

      When I was at university, during the summer holiday I got a job working for Glaxo helping to research into new painkillers. I really enjoyed it, and I decided I wanted to work here when I finished my degree. A lot of people say at university and do more study (a PhD), but I really wanted to get into the ‘real world’ and earn some money! 😉 I am really pleased I decided to come and work here and be a scientist, it is great fun. Also it’s really amazing to be able to use the science to work on medicines that could help people in the future.

    • Photo: Jeremy Green

      Jeremy Green answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      After deciding to do science A-levels, I applied to do a multi-science degree at university. That was because I couldn’t decide which kind of science I liked best. (I’ll admit I didn’t like chemistry much, but chemistry is so central to almost any sciences, that you have to do a bit and I did). I found the cell biology the most interesting, and still do.
      The next step was to study enough as a student (while still having a life, of course) so that I could get a good degree. That enabled me to get a PhD studentship, which meant working towards a project report for 3-4 years. After that, I worked for a little while with another lab that was interested in my PhD work and then I applied for a Postdoctoral Training Fellowship, which was basically a job in another lab for two years. That was so successful, I eventually got my own research group.

    • Photo: Simone Bijvoet

      Simone Bijvoet answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Looking at the answers of the others it seems like all scientists roll into science by accident, but I didn’t necessarily wanted to become a scientist to begin with either.

      I started studying psychology because I was interested in people and why we behave the way we do. I specialized in Clinical and Developmental psychology. At first I really wanted to become a Clinical psychologist, which means working with people with mental problems. I worked in a mental health care centre for a while with adults who were abused in childhood and because of that had a lot of problems in their day-to-day living. I noticed that I became really sad working there and found it hard to let go of the stories I heard during the day.

      This is when I decided I wanted to focus on Child development. Studying children is so much fun to do! I found a great supervisor who is looking at humor and joking in children, and as we started talking the idea to look at pretending and creativity came up as a subject for my research project. That’s how the ball started rolling. Now I am really enjoying studying what I call positive psychology. 🙂

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