• Question: What made you want to be a scientist

    Asked by jacobbradley7 to Antoine, Daniel, James, Julie, Saima on 15 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Julie Speakman

      Julie Speakman answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      Hey jacobbradley7
      it took me years to work out I wanted to be a scientist! For me I needed to try other things and kind of see how they felt, this helped me work out that this was what I wanted to do.

      I think one of the reasons I liked science at school is that I’m quite nosy! And science is often about working out what is really going on, even if you can’t see something and trying to understand how something works and so how you can make it better. I like using my knowledge of Physics and applying it to medical problems so that we can hopefully help people who are sick.

    • Photo: James Hickey

      James Hickey answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      Hi Jacob!

      When I was younger I always liked volcanoes and that inspired me to go to university and study a geoscience degree.

      Geoscience is a combination of chemistry, maths, physics, biology and some physical geography. This degree could have set me up for hundreds of different jobs but while I was studying I was still mainly interested in volcanoes. When I finished my degree I decided to do further research into volcanoes, and that’s where I’m at now – about halfway through doing a PhD. So I never really set out with the aim of being a ‘scientist’ I was just following the stuff I was interested in, and ended up becoming a scientist – but a volcano scientist 😀 .

      In case you don’t know, a PhD is further research about a specific topic (like volcanoes, or medical microbiology) and when you finish you become a ‘Doctor’ of your subject.

    • Photo: Saima Rehman

      Saima Rehman answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      Hi jacobbradley7, I always wanted to be a scientist. I always took interest in science class and practical classes at school level, then at college level, then at university level. And now I demonstrate for graduate students and teach them about amazing science practicals and experiments. Not only subjects, but my teachers also inspired me to become a scientist.

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