• Question: what was the first jobs you did and why?

    Asked by matthewhill to Allan, Angela, Diva, Harriet, Nathan on 2 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Allan Pang

      Allan Pang answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Technically, what I am doing currently cannot really be classified as a “job”. This is because I am still categorised as a “student”.

      My first full on experience with research is in the area of protein crystallography at Wales Heart Research Institute (this is an industrial training year during my undergrad degree in Cardiff University). In this research, I was looking at a protein called “ryanodine receptor 2”, a protein receptor found in heart muscle. I studied this because it is very interesting to know how can mutation of this protein leads to many heart diseases and if there’s a way to cure people with genetically “flawed” ryanodine receptor 2.

    • Photo: Nathan Langford

      Nathan Langford answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Hi Matthew,

      My very first job was a paper round, delivering the local newspaper! I also had a job emptying the rubbish at my local pharmacy. They were just jobs so that I could earn a bit of money for myself.

      I guess my first more serious job, though, was doing a summer job at my university physics department at the end of my first year at university. A friend and I had to build a laser tweezers experiment which could be used as a demonstration experiment for school visits. It was great experience and really got me started doing “real science”…

      After that, I started doing tutoring to help high school students with maths, physics and chemistry. This was really great experience and made me really enthusiastic about science education. It was so exciting and rewarding to see someone starting to understand something when you explained it to them. And it also really helped me to understand the topics so much better myself… many people have said, and it’s absolutely true, that you never really understand something properly until you have to teach it to somebody else!

      Cheers,
      Nathan.

    • Photo: Diva Amon

      Diva Amon answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Hey matthewhill,

      My first ever job was teaching sailing to kids (ages 6-14) during the summers when I was a teenager. It didn’t pay very well but it was a great job as it meant I was always in boats out on the ocean in the sun and I also got to do one of my favourite things – teach. Also, all of the teachers at this camp were some of my best friends so we had a great time with each other and the kids. I’ve been a keen sailor since I was seven and so this seemed like a fun, easy and rewarding way to make money.

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