• Question: what age did you want to become a scientist

    Asked by anon-199050 to Srinath, Natasha, Nana, Luisa, Gautam, Alex on 7 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Marialuisa Crosatti

      Marialuisa Crosatti answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      I think I probably start to think about it when I was 15-16 years old and I started to learn about the DNA and the tool we used to have back then to manipulate it

    • Photo: Srinath Kasturirangan

      Srinath Kasturirangan answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      When I was in 8th grade in India, everyone around me wanted to be a computer engineer or a doctor! I was interested in computers – but just to play games! I wasn’t too keen on becoming a doctor – you prescribe medicines that have been discovered by others!! So I decided I wanted to be the scientist, the researcher, the person who discovered these medicines who can have an impact on patient’s lives!

    • Photo: Natasha Dowey

      Natasha Dowey answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      Probably not until I started my degree! I knew that I loved physical geography at A Level, and wanted to study volcanoes- so my teacher told me I needed to look into Earth Science courses. I had never even heard of Earth Science. But when I started my degree, I was hooked. had never been really into classical sciences like physics or biology at school- it took me until I was about 18 to discover geology, which was a whole new scientific discipline to me, that was exciting and allowed me to try to understand how the world (and volcanoes!) worked.

    • Photo: Alexander Allen

      Alexander Allen answered on 11 Mar 2019:

      The thing is with me – I’m never sure I ever wanted to definitely be a scientist. I loved science right from when I was a kid. I used to love space books. Then I just enjoyed science lessons at school.

      As always with these questions, I give such a cliché of an answer, which is do what you love. I studied science at GCSE and A level because I really enjoyed it and I studied physics at university because I wanted to know more about physics!

      When I was finishing my degree (I was about 22) I did a project with molecules on a surface and how they behaved and I just fell in love with it. At that point I knew I wanted to study more and effectively fell in love and wanted to study science. For some people it’s an immediate moment of just knowing and for others they just maintain an interest. I tried for the next 3 years to become a scientist. I knew at 22 and started at 25!

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