• Question: Why have you chosen to go into the field of science you did?

    Asked by anon-218621 to Shannah, Richard, Matthew (known as Kaan by, johnpaterson, Emma, Anna on 12 Jun 2019. This question was also asked by anon-218023.
    • Photo: Emma Markham

      Emma Markham answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      I chose to go into genetics because I thought it was a sector which is rapidly growing, so there would be lots of jobs. I was fascinated by genetics and thought it would be interesting and fun, and because it is so new I thought I could discover something new or make a really contribution to the subject.

      I grew up on a chicken farm, and so I understood the breeding of chickens, but I would be so curious as to why occasionally you would get a white chick from two brown parent chicken (this could be a mutation in the feather colour gene or it could be a recessive gene). When I began learning genetics everything made sense and it was like a secret was unlocked! I just wanted to learn everything about it! So that’s why I chose genetics.

    • Photo: John Paterson

      John Paterson answered on 14 Jun 2019:

      I have always been interested in animals and particularly insects. I was interested in those things a long time before I knew I wanted to go into science. Then when I wanted to go into science it seemed an easy decision for me to study a subject where I could learn more about those things – that’s why I did Zoology as my degree at university. When I came to do a PhD I knew I still wanted to work with insects and pollination is quite a popular subject for research, so I knew there was a good chance I could get funding to pay for a job researching pollinators. So that’s how I made my choice!

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