• Question: When and how did you first become interested in becoming a scientist?

    Asked by ellie12 to Jamie, Jodie, Kat, Mark, Niamh on 14 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Mark Hill

      Mark Hill answered on 11 Mar 2011:

      It is very important to have good, inspired teachers. My biology teacher David Porter, was mad about biology and was a very keen entomologist. He was so enthusiastic in class that we couldn’t stop him when the bell went off. For those that showed an interest, he worked very hard to explain things and this enthusiasm rubs off.

      I am now really keen on all science and I am now lucky enough to be involved in forensic science, at the live-scene’ end and the investigative and analytical end as well. Likewise, if someone is interested in my job, particularly at a collision scene, once the fire and ambulance crews have left, then I will often ‘walk’ press reporters, or other interested people, through the scene and explain how the collision happened, and how I can tell if a car was braking, from light bulb distortion, skid marks, shoe marks on pedals, whether seat belts were worn at the time, and many other things. It is really quite simple.

      All you need is someone who is enthusiastic, a teacher, or scientist, and someone who is interested and wants to learn. You being on this web-site tells me that you do have good, enthusiastic teachers, so good luck if you choose to work in science. It’s all around us. Mark.

    • Photo: Katherine Davies

      Katherine Davies answered on 11 Mar 2011:

      Hi Ellie

      I started to enjoy science at secondary school. I liked asking ‘why’ a lot, and was fascinated by DNA and how it worked. I watched a few ‘forensic detective’ programmes, found them interesting and though ‘I would like to do that’; make a real difference to people’s lives and society.

      Kat

    • Photo: Niamh Nic Daeid

      Niamh Nic Daeid answered on 11 Mar 2011:

      Both of my parents were scientists. My mum is a botanist (she’s now a forensic scientist who specialises in fire scene investigation and runs her own company) and my dad was a chemist who also became a fire investigator. So I guess I was always surrounded by science.

    • Photo: Jamie Pringle

      Jamie Pringle answered on 11 Mar 2011:

      When I was on a family holiday to NW Scotland when I was around 10 year old, and I was wondering why the farm track had big lumps of Rose Quartz (pink mineral) in them and we didnt have any back in Norfolk. Geology was the answer – and I became interested in that and then moved into forensics, weird eh!

    • Photo: Jodie Dunnett

      Jodie Dunnett answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      To be honest, I’m not really sure. When I was at school I was always really interested in the science subjects I studied plus I found I was good at them so it made it an easy decision when choosing the A-levels I did (biology, chemistry, maths and physics). After my A-levels, I wanted to do a degree in something I enjoyed and forensic science enabled me to do that as it employed all of the sciences that I had previously studied.

Comments