• Question: were you considered "dumb" in school? i so how did you get to this point?

    Asked by anon-308594 to Amy on 10 Feb 2022.
    • Photo: Amy Mason

      Amy Mason answered on 10 Feb 2022:

      I think that depended on which teacher you asked.
      I was very good at mathematics and very very bad at languages.

      I think the trick is to play to what skills you do have. There are lots of jobs around disease prevention – not just scientists and mathematicians. We also need people who are good with social media and at talking to help us communicate ideas. We need people who understand ethics and how people think to help us decide what research is worth doing. We need people who are clever with their hands to build our labs and keep them working.

Comments

  • Photo: Chris

    Chris commented on :

    LIke Amy I found maths and science easy and fun, and languages so hard that despite a lot of work I was bottom of my class. I was also not great at sport. So some teachers thought I was dumb and others thought I was clever. Fortunately I was able to concentrate on my strengths which was good. I also found a sport (mountaineering) which I really loved.

  • Photo: Prabs

    Prabs commented on :

    I was considered clever (although like Amy and Chris, I had my strengths and weaknesses), but I had a condition called endometriosis which meant I was very anaemic (not enough red blood cells). Because I was anaemic, I couldn’t really do anything during the summer when it’s hot, I would faint really easily and terrible headaches, so I didn’t do well in any exams. I got into uni through clearing (which is something the unis do every year to make sure their classes are full), but as uni exams are also in the summer, I didn’t get a great grade as my endometriosis was not yet diagnosed and I still couldn’t function well in the heat. Luckily for me, I got into a masters programme where the exams were through a sit down discussion not writing essays in the hot summer months, and then a PhD.