• Question: kate you said that you did not pay attention at school and caused grief but if so how did you get the career that you have today?

    Asked by davidwhite to Kate on 15 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Kate Clancy

      Kate Clancy answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Thanks so much for asking, David.

      Actually, I have met a number of other scientists who had school backgrounds where they were troublemakers. One of my colleagues, who happens to be very well respected, dropped out of school when he was a teenager. He eventually got a high school degree, then went on to community college (this is a two year college, not sure if there is a UK equivalent), then eventually went to Stanford, which is a school on the west coast of the US similar to Harvard.

      I think that some people who have trouble in school, struggle because they need individual attention to succeed. And I think some people who have trouble in school struggle because they need to be challenged (and these categories can overlap for sure!). I wasn’t being challenged, and I am a very competitive, headstrong, independent person. So, by the time I was four years old I was already getting frustrated at school, and that continued off and on until I was thirteen or fourteen.

      Now, I was never in detention or suspended or anything, just got in trouble with my teachers from time to time. And just being socialized to have better behavior helped a lot. But I think a lot of public school systems struggle with the fact that they need to teach lots of different kinds of students, from those who are failing to those who are way ahead of what is being taught. Now that I teach myself, I see how hard it was and have so much more respect for my past teachers!

      Why do so many of these kinds of people end up in science? Science allows you to be independent and competitive and headstrong, which, like I said, are personality traits of my own! Those of us who want to be intellectual, and want to be stimulated and excited by our jobs, are going to be drawn to science. It certainly isn’t the only challenging job out there, but being a scientist is exciting because of how it is different every day.

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