• Question: what conviced you to become a sceintist

    Asked by rabbit98 to Ben, James, Jen, Michael, Susanna on 8 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by meggsie46, cooldude, kitkat22, kkhairya.
    • Photo: Michael Craig

      Michael Craig answered on 8 Mar 2013:

      I’ve always pestered and annoyed people with questions since I was little, always wanting to know the answers to how something works or, why something happens. Combing this with an interest in how the body works led me to studying science at school, sixth form, university, and now, where my job is a Scientist! It’s great being a full time scientist as I can still ask questions but now I get to find out the answers to them through my experiments!

    • Photo: Jen Todd Jones

      Jen Todd Jones answered on 8 Mar 2013:

      Like I said in my profile I originally started out as more of an arts student studying theatre and literature – I decided to do a Psychology degree because I was interested in people and the brain.

      During my degrees I learned a lot of the basics of biology, chemistry and physics so I could understand what we were being taught! Looking at pictures of the brain and hearing people talk about the body as a whole and how this and the brain made us human really appealed to me. I found something that interested me and only then did I really decide that I could be a scientist, only then did I even believe I could be one! I think it’s really important to remember that you don’t have to start as a scientist, once you find something that you find really interesting anything is possible.

    • Photo: Susanna Martin

      Susanna Martin answered on 8 Mar 2013:

      I find this quite hard as often I don’t call myself a scientist, infact some times I don’t call myself a psychologist, I like to use the general term of researcher, and sometimes more specifically a Human – Computer Interaction researcher. I chose to be a researcher by accident, I always knew I wanted to do a degree, and from there I was given the opportunity to do a PhD, and so becoming a researcher has been the logical progression. Most important has been having a job which I enjoy, and I enjoy being a researcher as I can ask questions and develop ways to find the solution myself!

    • Photo: Ben Brilot

      Ben Brilot answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      I actually didn’t know I wanted to be a scientist, I knew I wanted to be a zoologist and look at animals. But as it turns out, probably the only way you can get paid to do that is by being a scientist. I did actually try life as an ecologist for a while. But you get to see much more animal poo than you do animals themselves when you’re looking for them.

    • Photo: James Stovold

      James Stovold answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      I was always in trouble at school — the only time I was behaving was when I was in a science lesson and I got to really use my brain to do something, from there I figured it was a good move to stay in science, so I stuck with it. Originally, I wanted to be a science teacher, but then once I was at university I changed my mind and went into scientific research, which still allows me to teach at the university.

Comments