• Question: Did you just want to be a scientist or did you just fall into the job?

    Asked by anon-218033 to Shannah, Richard, Matthew (known as Kaan by, johnpaterson, Emma, Anna on 8 Jun 2019. This question was also asked by anon-218865, anon-218613.
    • Photo: Emma Markham

      Emma Markham answered on 8 Jun 2019:

      That is a great question. I never planned to be a scientist when I was young. I did dream of being an archaeologist when I was 14 or 15, but was told I should be a waitress instead. So I left school at 16 and began working full time and studying in the evening to be a tailor. Only when I couldn’t find a job as a tailor did I go back to school and get more qualifications, then I feel in love with science and decided I would try and be a scientist.
      I think it is important to be inspired and really want to do a job, as that will motivate you to study and put in the hard work to get there. For me, I’m curious about the world and want to know how things work and why, so science was a way of explaining the world around me. I was never very academic in school, but I think that was because I never found anything that really excited me. Do don’t worry if you don’t know what you want to do yet, there is plenty of time to figure out what you would like to do.

    • Photo: John Paterson

      John Paterson answered on 9 Jun 2019:

      I was certain that I wanted to study zoology at university – the study of animals – from a young age because I was always interested in nature, however after completing university I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. I ended up taking a job in finance which I worked in for 8 years after university. Despite that, I never really stopped thinking about taking my studies further and read a lot of science books and papers in my spare time. Eventually I decided that going back to university was something I wanted to do sooner rather than later so I left my job and went back to uni to become a scientist.

      So even though I had some idea I wanted to be a scientist from a young age it took me a while to actually achieve that.

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