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Asked by anon-186616 to Verity, Trystan, Raquel, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 2 Nov 2018.
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Danny Ward answered on 2 Nov 2018:
I decided that I liked biology at A-level so I would take it at university. It was during university that I knew science for me.
University gives you so many things to learn about your chosen topic. If you find something boring, there are usually other things you can learn about instead! University is a lot more independent too. You can learn in your own way and read up on stuff you find interesting.
I found molecular biology and microbiology to be really interesting. There is a whole world which is so incredibly complex…which we can’t even see with the naked eye. Once I started to learn about that and got to work in a laboratory researching that topic, I knew I wanted to follow science further.
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Verity Hill answered on 2 Nov 2018:
Between year 11 and year 12 (when I was 16) I read this book called “The Wildlife of our Bodies” by Rob Dunn, and it really opened my eyes to how dynamic biology was, and how you can think about medical problems using evolution and it can tell you why things happen, not just how. It made me realise that there isn’t just one right answer like you read in a textbook, but lots of different ideas with different levels of evidence and logic behind them. During year 12 and 13 I read a lot of books on a lot of different bits of biology and found some of them interesting and some not! Science is a lot broader than it what it feels like at school – I didn’t love biology A level, but by reading things about evolution between humans and the micro-organisms that live on us and make us sick (or help us!) I realised that I did love biology as a broader subject.
I decided that I wanted to study biology at university. I really enjoyed my degree, and when I got to my final year and realised I wasn’t done yet! Also, the Ebola outbreak that I now work on was going on the whole time I was at university, and I was endlessly fascinated by it – it’s such a knotty complex problem, and you have to consider the people, the virus and the politics to try to work out why it was so terrible. I also desperately wanted to help and to stop it from happening again.
Don’t worry if you don’t know if you want to do science after university- just pick something you find really cool and it will be ok! I didn’t choose to do biology because I wanted to go into science – I chose it because I thought knowing and understanding things in it would be fun!
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Raquel Medialdea Carrera answered on 3 Nov 2018:
I knew I loved science since I was 13. It was then when I took part in the Spanish Mathematics Olympic Games. It was a great experience and since then, I always knew that science can be fascinating, fun and entertaining!
Then, I realise that science helps us understand this amazing world a bit better! 🌌 -
Trystan Leng answered on 4 Nov 2018:
I didn’t decide I would go into science until after university actually. I had studied some philosophy at university, so my original plan was to become a philosopher!
I suppose I decided while spending some time as a research assistant at a neuroscience lab after I had finished my degree. It was there I found out about how maths can be used to ‘model’ the real world, and how important it is that people to do it. I also realised just how many unanswered questions there still are in science. After working here, I knew I wanted to continue doing science.
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Catherine Smith answered on 4 Nov 2018:
When I was at university I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do – I went to careers fairs and applied for various different types of jobs. After leaving university I worked at a software company for a while, and at that point I realised that I wanted to be doing something that I found more interesting and challenging. It sounds a bit cheesy but I also wanted to be doing something that felt in some way helpful to the world.. Of course there are a lot of careers that can do that in different ways but science seemed to suit my strengths the most.
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Andy Guise answered on 5 Nov 2018:
Late! I went to Uni and had always enjoyed science. I worked in a charity and government after studying as I wanted to be involved in ‘action’; I was working on HIV policy, and global health issues. As I was doing this though I realised more and more how science, and scientific thinking, is essential to tackling health and social problems. I was 27 when I started my PhD – which is basically research training – and that is when I really started down the path of science. I’m lucky – I work in a field of science that is very open to people combining experiences, so the slight shift wasn’t a problem, but actually helped. Now when I do my research I can combine science and policy perspectives.
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