• Question: You've Done Alot Of Jobs, What Made You Be A Scientist?

    Asked by emmapritchard to Sarah, Laura, Lily, Mark, Paul on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by seulix, ena145, dekhanxxx, saima, starfish101twilight, daiiseyy, daxfoxy, purebloodcross, cazza, lozzadee, xhanhanx, helenpeggy, xsageox, lauren97.
    • Photo: Mark Roberts

      Mark Roberts answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I’ve always been fascinated by life and the fact that we just ‘work’ well most of the time anyway so it’s that fascination that made me become a scientist

      As I got older I became more fascinated with the small things – so now work on bacteria as they are amazing things.

    • Photo: Lily Asquith

      Lily Asquith answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      There is no other job I know of quite like research science. The freedom to *think* and to be creative is so rare in many jobs.

    • Photo: Laura Maliszewski

      Laura Maliszewski answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Well, my jobs have had two things in common:
      1. It sounds like fun
      2. I get to basically do what I want

      As a researcher I ran experiments to answer questions I thought were important, so essentially problem solving. As a S&I officer, I get to solve other problems, like how can scientists work together to improve medicines. It’s kinda all the same process. You learn a bunch of background, form a theory, test the theory and think about how to do it better next time.

    • Photo: Sarah Bardsley

      Sarah Bardsley answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      All of the other jobs I’ve done, I did part-time while I was at school or when I went travelling. In fact I got my first job at the age of 13 as a waitress and cleaner in a pub. Doing this was fantastic for raising money to spend of fun things and for learning more about the world and what’s out there. While I would never have wanted to continue fruit picking all my life (its back breaking work!), I really enjoyed the hospitality work like waitressing and bar work. But in the end I wanted to specialise as a scientist to fulfil an interest in learning about the natural world and because I understood that science wasn’t as popular as studying an arts degree, therefore getting a good job could be made a little easier with such a qualification.

    • Photo: Paul Roche

      Paul Roche answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Apart from jobs that I did before I finished university (i.e. paper boy, working on the tills in Tescos, spending a summer in a steel works, working as a barman and finally as a nightclub bouncer….the usual sort of student suff…), everything else I’ve done has been science-related.

      I started off as a researcher, then moved more into education (especially when I moved to the National Space Centre in Leicester), and now I am in charge of a project which combines both of these things. I get to travel the world, give talks in schools, meet all sorts of famous people (including Tony Blair, Nick Clegg, Princess Ann, Lemmy from Motorhead, Patrick Moore, Terry Pratchett and lots of astronauts – so an interesting mix!), and still get involved a big research projects – it’s that sort of variety of stuff that makes me want to do science!

      I definitely don’t do it for money or fame or anything like that – those things are possible for scientists, but only a few manage any of them. Most of us just love doing what we do. Me, I was mostly interested in not having to wear a suit, and being able to work whatever hours I wanted to (assuming I get my jobs done)…

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