• Question: why did you become a scientist because they are alot of other jobs

    Asked by lburke20 to Jodie, Niamh, Mark, Kat, Jamie on 14 Mar 2011 in Categories: . This question was also asked by ruthbrooks, flora.
    • Photo: Katherine Davies

      Katherine Davies answered on 12 Mar 2011:

      Hi

      What I preferred about science over everything else, was that it teaches us about everything around us, i.e. life. How do things work, why do they work etc. I loved trying to find questions that my teachers didnt know the answer to! I thought it would be a good job/career because you can always find out something new.

      I did want to be a vet when I was about 11 because I loved animals, until my rabbit became ill with fly-strike (not very nice disease, Ill let you google it), then I got really upset when she had to be put down. I thought perhaps I would enjoy another aspect of medicine/helping people would to be a pathologist, i.e. find out how/why someone died, and this is partly how I got interested in forensics

      Kat

    • Photo: Jamie Pringle

      Jamie Pringle answered on 12 Mar 2011:

      In my experience, most other jobs are not as interesting as science ones. I get to discover new things all the time, it’s very varied – I can be teaching for some of the day, doing fieldwork elsewhere, playing with high tech equipment, talking to Police search teams and finding out new stuff that no one has done before, so it’s pretty exciting basically!

    • Photo: Mark Hill

      Mark Hill answered on 13 Mar 2011:

      Hi,

      I think that you become a scientist when you start to do scientific experiments – at school. Working as a scientist would be extreme end of that process.

      I had a very keen interest in science from school and I was keen to become a doctor. I took the three sciences at A level and then became a police officer. Don’t ask me why. I cannot remember when I decided to, but here I am, 27 years later, working as a collision investigator, with forensic science, physics and other facets of science. I probably wouldn’t have made it as a doctor ( much to the relief of the NHS) but I am now really lucky doing what I do.

      Although we have to go through a lot of training and exams to do my job, with an analytical mind they are quite passable.
      However, last year, I chose to go university, for the first time, for a Masters degree, looking a lot more deeply into the physics and maths.
      Now I have ‘the learning bug’ again and I am hoping to start a research degree (PhD) in driver psychology (looking at why people drive the way that they do).

      I guess that the interest in science has just continued from school. I have been very lucky and I think that I could have done far worse.

      Mark.

    • Photo: Niamh Nic Daeid

      Niamh Nic Daeid answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      I always wanted to know why or how things worked so science seemed a natural choice. I was also quite interested in the natural world, so the environment, space and so on and wanted to learn more about how it all fitted together. In science the more you start to look into things in detail the more you start to see how much there is to learn about almost everything (!) so its a subject that really holds you interest. N

    • Photo: Jodie Dunnett

      Jodie Dunnett answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      It just of happended really. As I was coming towards the end of my degree, I was asked if I wanted to stay on and do a PhD. I didn’t really know what else I wanted to do so accepted. Alongside my PhD I helped out in lab classes then I did a bit of lecturing and finally it became my full-time job! I don’t regret it though, I love what I do!

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