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Asked by 397cars46 on 21 Sep 2016. This question was also asked by anon-197752.
Question: what made you become a scientist?
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Marianne Baker answered on 21 Sep 2016:
I just always had an interest in the world around me, animals in particular – what made them tick. I loved Attenborough documentaries, and it was amazing to me how all this life existed on our planet. I didn’t care about anything else as much!
I enjoyed it at school, and my degree, so I went to work in the lab for my PhD – I left because I found that very stressful, but that was probably to do with some other things in my life at the time, too, so who knows – maybe I’ll go back one day!Now I like having the opportunity to tell people what our scientists are doing, because it’s great work, it’s important; we’re all affected by cancer. So that’s a really positive thing.
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Rebecca Dewey answered on 21 Sep 2016:
I wanted to be a scientist since I was about 8 years old! I’ve changed the area that I wanted to work in from time to time (I originally wanted to work in drug development, and then in space science, then in theoretical astrophysics and now I’m in medical imaging). I guess the main thing that attracted me was that I want to be the first person to find out all the new cool stuff – how to diagnose and cure diseases, etc. I am just really nosey! It’s really exciting being on the cutting edge of new stuff being found out.
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Melanie Zimmer answered on 21 Sep 2016:
Hi 397cars46,
I never planned to go into research, let alone software development and studying Maths!
I think in the end I can only “blame” a deadline for a portfolio for a design study programme I couldn’t meet as I then studied Maths instead. 😀
During my Bachelor studies in Maths we had programming classes. As I enjoyed these more than some of my Maths lectures, I decided to study Computer Science (or as we called it: Software Technology) for my Master.
I then got offered a job here at HSSMI (a research institute) and that is basically how I become a scientist / an engineer. 😀
Melanie
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Hayley Moulding answered on 22 Sep 2016:
I was always asking questions about ‘why things happened’, ‘what does that do?’ ‘how does that work?” what’s that?’to the point where I realised I could soon find out the answer, or begin to find out all those answers by persuing science! I also really enjoyed it at school, the precision and it made sense. There was right or wrong and to me, I understood that better than other subjects were there is more interpretation and your own ideas.
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Ian Hands-Portman answered on 22 Sep 2016:
Constant curiosity! I’ve had microscopes since I was eight, used to fiddle around with electronics, grow things, pull mechanical things apart ( and sometimes manage to put them back together ), I’ve always wanted to know how things work and what’s inside them
Comments
Ian commented on :
I was the kid constantly asking ‘why?’ from more or less the moment I could speak, I had a toy microscope when I was 8, chemistry sets ( which were a lot more exciting in those days ), a general love of tinkering with things. It was almost predestiny.
Melanie commented on :
I never really planned to be a scientist. I always enjoyed learning new things, but until my very last year of school I would have never thought I would study maths and (let alone) computer science – although maths was one of my favourite subjects at school. My other favourite subject was arts, and up to some point I have seen myself working in that field. In the end it was all just down to not finishing a portfolio for a design study programme that made me study maths…. And here I am – working in a research institute while also doing a PhD. 🙂
Melanie commented on :
Oh, I just realised that I already answered that question – sorry about that! 😀