• Question: Did you always think you were going to become a scientist?

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      Asked by Liam to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 10 Jun 2016.
      • Photo: Robert Williams

        Robert Williams answered on 10 Jun 2016:

        Yes – though I did like geology at school so that was plan b)

      • Photo: Laura Finney

        Laura Finney answered on 10 Jun 2016:

        Nope! I wanted to be all kinds of things! In fact to give you an idea here is a list of all the things I used to want to be –
        vet, lawyer, midwife, child minder, social worker, restaurant owner… the list goes on and they are all very different!

        The best advice I was given though was to study sciences and maths, even if I wanted to be a lawyer or something else as it wouldn’t stop me from doing it, but if I decided I wanted to do science later (which I did and here I am), I wouldn’t be able to if I didn’t get the science qualifications.

      • Photo: Ruth Patchett

        Ruth Patchett answered on 11 Jun 2016:

        No. It’s such a hard decision and I always liked a lot of subjects. When it came to it I struggled to pick between studying science and English at university! It’s pretty tough to decide but I try to remind myself you don’t have to get one job forever most people nowadays get a job and learn new skills and can take that on to do a job that’s pretty different. I already think part time jobs I had when I was at school like working in a cafe or shop have given me skills that have made me better at chemistry for example they made me a lot more organised and better at working with other people.

      • Photo: John Fossey

        John Fossey answered on 12 Jun 2016:

        I was pretty sure about science from a young age (I toyed with the idea of engineering), but alway new the maths, science, engineering cluster was for me.
        The great thing about science is it is so varied, it is not one job, it is many opportunities to learn new things.

      • Photo: Luke Williams

        Luke Williams answered on 12 Jun 2016:

        When I was very young I apparently wanted to be a bus driver. Since then though I have just kept studying science and engineering. I picked six different degrees to study at university on my UCAS form, all of which had a vague relationship to biological sciences in some way, but were still all pretty different. I ended up on one of them because it seemed pretty cool, and I took it from there.

        I just kept on and on and on following some sort of plan that I didn’t even really know myself, and here I am today.

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