• Question: How did you become a scientist?

    Asked by rays449hug on 17 Jan 2022.
    • Photo: Chloe Jones

      Chloe Jones answered on 17 Jan 2022:

      Hi!

      I am fairly early into my journey to becoming a scientist but I started by doing my undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology (St Andrews). During my degree I spent one summer getting experience in a lab in Germany where I got some hands on experience as to what it was like to be a scientist full time! After my degree I got accepted straight onto my PhD and I’m currently 2.5 years in!

    • Photo: Jonny Coates

      Jonny Coates answered on 17 Jan 2022:

      Studied at university for ~7 years (3 years undergraduate degree, 1 year masters degree, 3.5 years PhD). But then after this there is “postdoc” training (if you want to run your own lab eventually) where you are more independent in the research you do and will often train students.

      But, I didn’t feel like a proper scientist until I published my own independent work last year.

    • Photo: Lucy Garner

      Lucy Garner answered on 17 Jan 2022:

      I studied Natural Sciences at Uni with a focus on cell and molecular biology. During my second year at Uni, I did a 8-week project at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden – it was an immunology lab, working on a disease known as Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome. I loved spending time in the lab and this experience convinced me that I would enjoy a research career.

    • Photo: Chris Budd

      Chris Budd answered on 17 Jan 2022:

      The simple answer is that I did a degree in maths at Cambridge, followed by a PhD iin computer science and maths at Oxford, followed by a post-doc in Oxford joint with the electricity generating board. After that I became an independent scientis at Bath. But I have also spent a lot of time working with industry, so I have seen science from both the university and the industry perspectives.

    • Photo: Samuel Ellis

      Samuel Ellis answered on 17 Jan 2022:

      As with the other answers, I took the university route into science. Did my undergrad at UEA in Norwich, and then stayed another year to do a MSc as I still was not sure if I wanted to commit to a PhD at that point. In the end I really enjoyed my MSc research project and it convinced me I was ready for a PhD so I applied to various unis and ended up getting one.. at UEA! So ended up doing 3 degrees over 8 years at the same uni, which was never my original plan. After PhD I got my current Post-Doc job at UCL and moved to London

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