• Question: What age were you when you realised that this is the career you wanted to do?

    Asked by busy485bar on 9 Jun 2023. This question was also asked by duke485bar, type485fen.
    • Photo: Ferran Brosa Planella

      Ferran Brosa Planella answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      I don’t know exactly. As a kid I always liked science, so doing research came as a natural option for me.

    • Photo: John Grasmeder

      John Grasmeder answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      I’ve liked science since I was a child of about 4 or 5 years old, my mum said I was always asking questions and wanting to understand how things work. I also like solving problems and learning new things. One of my earliest memories was watching TV when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969. THat made me wonder what spaceships were made of. Then I got to secondary school and liked doing experiments in the chemistry lab. I had an inspirational chemistry teacher and later studied chemistry at university. While doing my PhD I decided I wanted to do something useful with my science knowledge, which for me meant I wanted to work in industry, and that’s what I’ve done ever since, inventing new materials for all sorts of things, including spaceships!

    • Photo: Sharron Kenny

      Sharron Kenny answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      I was older than most I think because I did vocational qualifications 1st and worked with horses for awhile before knowing science was for me. id have been 18 before i went back to college to study A-levels and go to university and begin my science pathway

    • Photo: Aneta Glab

      Aneta Glab answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      I was around 30 years old when I decided that I wanted to be scientist.

    • Photo: Sam Page

      Sam Page answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      Up to taking my A-Levels around 18 years old, I was very unsure what direction I wanted to go in. Chemistry won out as the subject that I was most interested in, so I studied Chemistry for my undergraduate degree. During my degree, I took a year out to work in industry, working for a big pharmaceutical company. After finishing my degree, I decided to continue studying and started my PhD – at that point, I found doing chemical research in a university more interesting than starting a chemistry job in industry. However, by the end of my PhD I was definitely ready to move outside of university to the “real-world”, as I wanted my work to have more of a meaningful impact. So I found a chemistry job which used the skills and knowledge from my studies, but allowed me to transfer my knowledge to a more practical application.

    • Photo: Alice Ind

      Alice Ind answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      I have really loved nature since I was a kid and enjoyed science at school. I also really liked art and history but I decided on science A-levels, and then later got accepted to do Physics at uni, but I shifted to Biochemistry during my degree.

      My career has developed by following what interests me (and that I can get a job in). I haven’t had a definitive plan since school as I didn’t know then what a career as a scientist really looked like. Everyone’s career develops differently and changes within a career always teach you so much. I have met many scientists with really interesting “wiggly” career paths.

    • Photo: Cat Cowie

      Cat Cowie answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      Through most of school I just liked learning really, and I did love Science but I thought I wanted to be a vet. It was only when I started looking at universities at age 17 that I realised there was such a thing as just studying ecology and environmental science – I’ve been hooked ever since. So it’s ok if you don’t yet know what you want to do or if you want to work in science or not, it comes later for some people and that’s fine!

    • Photo: Emma Spooner

      Emma Spooner answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      I always enjoyed science but at school wasn’t sure about all the options available to me. I thought about becoming a doctor or a vet, but pursued chemistry because it seemed broad and would mean I would have lots of options afterwards. I didn’t learn about the area I research now until my masters’ degree.
      I think there are lots of science jobs out there you might not know about until after school, sometimes the best option is to do something broad and then specialise when you figure out what you really enjoy!

    • Photo: Helen Littler

      Helen Littler answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      I always wanted to be an engineer but I only knew I wanted to be a civil engineer when I was 16.

    • Photo: Alexander De Bruin

      Alexander De Bruin answered on 9 Jun 2023:

      I’ve liked science since before I knew what science was. When I was really young, I loved the idea of being the mad scientist with a shed in the garden making explosions! I knew I wanted to move more towards chemistry during my A-levels, and I gradually found which bit of chemistry most interested me during my time at University.

    • Photo: Amy Stockwell

      Amy Stockwell answered on 10 Jun 2023:

      I still don’t! I’m always learning and much of my career path has been about starting broad and finding out which bits interested me, plus a bit of luck.
      I’ve known since GCSEs that I wanted to be a scientist. Then at A-levels I decided that I loved chemistry. During my degree I did 2 summer placements and learnt that I wanted to work in industry not academia.
      I got a job working for a multinational food company in their research and development department (R&D). Here I did a range of roles, each time finding what worked and didn’t work for me. I really enjoyed lab work but I’m also very academic and good at the book research too.
      Then I got sick and it wasn’t safe for me to work in the lab. At the time my boss was looking for someone to learn a bit about carbon footprints and how it could be useful to the company. So I was in the right place at the right time.

    • Photo: Maddy Carter

      Maddy Carter answered on 12 Jun 2023:

      When I was 17 and choosing my A levels is when I became really interested in biology and decided to continue studying it. After that there was always something I was interested to learn which kept driving me forward.

    • Photo: Festus Ejikemeuwa

      Festus Ejikemeuwa answered on 12 Jun 2023:

      I was 16 years old when I decided I wanted to go into sciences.

    • Photo: Ian Duffy

      Ian Duffy answered on 13 Jun 2023:

      I knew I love science early on, but I couldn’t have imagined the career itself at the time. I’ve basically said “yes” to interesting opportunities throughout, always worked my best, and always tried to do things that make a difference. My science skills have helped me in all of that.

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