• Question: What made you take up the field of science you are in and can you do all/other types of svience out of your field?

    Asked by Science Girl!!! to Ashley, Bernard, Carsten, Monique on 7 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Monique Henson

      Monique Henson answered on 7 Nov 2015:

      I started studying physics because physicists try to understand the universe, which always sounded incredible. I’ve always been the kind of person who has a million questions about everything (not necessarily intelligent questions!), and studying physics is a great way to find out the answers to those questions.

      Now I’m an astronomer, and I’ve answered some of those questions, but I’ve thought of a lot more questions that still need answering! My knowledge is quite specific to physics and astronomy, so I might have to do some more studying if I wanted to go to a completely different area of science. However, there are lots of crossovers between different areas of science. I have friends who studied physics with me at university who are now working in biology and chemistry departments for example. Studying science open doors for you so that you always have lots of choices for where you can end up.

    • Photo: Carsten Welsch

      Carsten Welsch answered on 8 Nov 2015:

      I was fascinated by the interdisciplinary nature of accelerator physics right from the start. To design and optimize beyond state-of-the-art particle accelerators or instrumentation to characterize particle beams you need physics, engineering, IT, maths, electronics, vacuum science and other areas which makes it really interesting.

      Although different disciplines are closely related, it takes a long time to become an expert in one area, so doing all types of sciences outside of ones field would be difficult – but give a good scientist some time and many would probably also do well in other areas as the general approach to problem-solving is similar.

Comments