• Question: When did you become a scientist ?

    Asked by anon-217993 to Shannah, Richard, Matthew (known as Kaan by, Emma, johnpaterson, Anna on 8 Jun 2019. This question was also asked by anon-217972, anon-217974, anon-217980, anon-217975, anon-217988, anon-218344, anon-218391, anon-218496.
    • Photo: Emma Markham

      Emma Markham answered on 8 Jun 2019:

      I only considered I wanted to be a scientist during my A-Levels, as I originally left school at 16 and worked full-time in a shoe shop and part time in a DIY store, while studying a night course in tailoring. However, once I qualified I couldn’t find work as a tailor, and so I went back to school to do my A-levels. I enjoyed science but it wasn’t until my second year that I realised I could be a scientist, so I was 18.
      My first job in science after undergraduate university was in a company which tests food and drugs for bacterial contamination (so we know the food and medication is safe and won’t make us ill), and this is when I learned a lot about working in a commercial lab and how to work to a protocol.I then went back to study a Masters after a year, because I wanted to improve my job prospects and work in genetics.
      I then began working in a company who run clinical trials for treatments for the Flu, which was wonderful and I then moved to Australia and began my first role working in genetics. I think it took a while and a few different job changes for me to feel like a real scientist and to find the job which was right for me. A lot of my friends have had different journeys into becoming a scientist, many didn’t go to university but instead did an apprenticeship or worked their way up in a job or did an open university course. So there is lots of different ways to become a scientist, you just have to find the right one for you.

    • Photo: John Paterson

      John Paterson answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      I think I first made the decision to become a scientist 4 years ago, when I was 29 and working in a completely different job as an accountant. I decided that I didn’t want to just read about science in my spare time and it was something that I wanted to go back to university and study in greater detail. It then took me a year of planning and saving money before I could leave my job and come back to university, but I first made that decision about 4 years ago.

      Becoming a scientist is a gradual process though and one of the things we discussed in the first year of my PhD was when do you start thinking of yourself as a scientist? Is it when you read about science, when you do a science degree, when you become a PhD student, when you perform research or when you publish your first paper? In some ways I think all you need to be a scientist is the right way of thinking about the world and a desire to do experiments or research. You can start doing all of that before you even go to university! But I guess I first started thinking of myself as a scientist when I decided to actually go back to university and do scientific work as a full-time job.

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