Question: How did you become a scientist?

Geraint Evans answered on 16 Mar 2021:

Short answer, I studied science and maths in school and carried on studying it at university!

At some point in school (usually around year 10) you’re allowed to focus more on the subjects you like in school, so you get to choose to continue with some and drop other ones. If you carry on in school or go to college you again choose an even smaller number of subjects to study. After that you can then apply to university to study just one (or sometimes two subjects together) in a lot of detail. Hopefully you will then have a degree in that subject. For some jobs a degree in science is enough to become a scientist, but most tend to go on to do a PhD, where you research something no one else has thought/looked at yet for a few years. Then after that you can go on to be a scientist in research or industry.

So I stuck with science in school the whole way, picking Physics, Chemistry and Maths at College level before doing Theoretical Physics at university. Now I’m doing a PhD in Physics.