• Question: Did you always want to be a scientist?

    Asked by rose.h-t to Alice, Bose, Christian, Emma, Steve on 4 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by Abbie, Sara, Tara Power, libbym, thomas, Olivia Vincent, oscar, albielog, presshandstands6.
    • Photo: Alice Harpole

      Alice Harpole answered on 4 Mar 2016:

      As far as I can remember, yes! As I child, I was really fascinated by space – I used to love reading about all the different planets and the weird and wonderful objects outside of our solar system like supernovae and black holes. I feel rather lucky that I’m now living my childhood dream of being an astrophysicist!

    • Photo: Steve Marsden

      Steve Marsden answered on 5 Mar 2016:

      In primary school I think I wanted to be an inventor. Throughout secondary school I knew I enjoyed the sciences and wanted to just keep doing them. I never really thought being a scientist was a real possibility. It’s not a real job, it’s just a title given to poorly written TV characters, right?

      When I was applying to university, I applied for physics because that’s what I enjoyed studying. I knew that the course had pretty decent career prospects in engineering, programming and finance, so dived in assuming I’d get a job in the real world afterwards. I didn’t even apply for straight physics, but rather maths and physics, because that would give a larger spread of possible career paths in business.

      It was only during the second or third year of university that the thought of being a physicist presented it as a genuine possibility. From that point there was no doubt that I wanted to be a particle physicist.

      Then again, when I was five I visited Kennedy Space Center, and was convinced that I wanted to be an astronaut, and quite frequently that desire still resurfaces.

    • Photo: Emma Dean

      Emma Dean answered on 6 Mar 2016:

      No, I wanted to be lots of different things when I was growing up. First I wanted to be a teacher, then an actress. As I got a older I decided I wanted to be a pilot, an astronaut or a fashion designer. To become a pilot you really need to study physics and maths. I enjoyed these subjects so much, I thought being a scientist would be more interesting. Trying to decide between studying fashion or physics at university was really tough. I chose physics because I couldn’t teach myself very well and I already knew how to sew. Making clothes and jewellery is now one of my hobbies.

    • Photo: Benjamin Bose

      Benjamin Bose answered on 6 Mar 2016:

      I’m still not sure but I’d say I’m happy so far.

      The reason why I got on this path is because I really couldn’t see myself doing anything else, although just because I couldn’t imagine myself doing any other job doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be happy doing something else. I think I finally decided on this path when I was about 17 at which point I had cycled through enough iterations of the question, “Could you wake up every morning to bake bread? to count money? to operate on people? to teach? to sail ships?”

      Finally got a ‘maybe’ with ‘studying the universe and space?’ 🙂

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