• Question: why did you choose this career

    Asked by anon-184917 to William, Rebecca, Martyna, Callum, Alice, Adam on 4 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Rebecca Roddan

      Rebecca Roddan answered on 4 Nov 2018:

      I find it really exciting learning new things about the world, even though its such a tiny thing and each small discovery doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. It’s also fun – I get to hang out with likeminded people all day and doing lab work is really sociable. I enjoy learning new things every day and having the freedom to read and be creative.

    • Photo: Martyna Pastok

      Martyna Pastok answered on 4 Nov 2018: last edited 4 Nov 2018 5:15 pm

      Sometimes I am asking myself the same question… 😉
      I like learning, discovering and understanding world around us better… When you understand something better, before others, answer question no-one else answered, it is the big sense of achievement and you have a feeling you did something for world in general. You feel proud. It is a great feeling.

    • Photo: Alice Loasby

      Alice Loasby answered on 4 Nov 2018:

      I think when I was 15/16 I saw a protein crystal structure for the first time and was just fascinated by the whole process. I’ve stayed in science because I love working in a lab and you meet some incredible people! It’s very laid back where I work (although we do all work hard) and we all support each other, we are like a family! I also get to find out about so many different peoples work and help people on other projects who are doing really cool things!

    • Photo: William Glass

      William Glass answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      That’s a great question, I guess I just like to find out how the world works. It’s a great way to work as every day is a little bit different. It’s really exciting when you realise you’re working on a question that nobody has the answer to yet!

    • Photo: Callum McHugh

      Callum McHugh answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      A very good question and not so easy to answer.

      I liked chemistry at school and decided to do a degree, although had no idea what I wanted to do at the end of it. I managed to get a PhD and then a PostDoc (although these weren’t my original goals). After that I worked in industry for 5 years, which was great and allowed me to travel a lot. I have finally ended up doing what I love which is working in a University teaching chemistry and doing chemistry research – this wasn’t even part of my thinking way back when I left school

      The moral of the story is that you should do things that interest you, but you should also choose a path that gives you options and the ability to change path along the way!

    • Photo: Adam Berlie

      Adam Berlie answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      Why did I choose this career over everything else? Well it more or less chose me. When you’re at school, you are exposed to lots of different things and you find things you like and things you don’t. For me, I just enjoyed science, not the life sciences because I couldn’t be bothered memorising a load of stuff, but the physical sciences, like chemistry and physics, just suited me. Being at school, one of the greatest things is to know when you like something and when you don’t. I hated English and French, I can’t think of anything worse then having to suffer through that drudgery. So science was just a natural choice. And then after that I did a degree, then I wanted to do a bit more, so I did a PhD, then I still wanted to keep going, so I did postdocs – you see where I’m going here…?

Comments