• Question: Were you good at science when you were in school?

    Asked by berrylover22 to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I guess I was good at science – I worked hard and got good grades. I tended to prefer the more exact sciences like physics though. I didn’t really like biology that much when I was at school as I found there was too much to learn – with physics you could learn a formula and then be able to answer questions, but you couldn’t do this with biology! I didn’t actually take biology A-level – just maths, physics and chemistry.

      At school I was better at maths than science though which was why I did maths for my degree. However, since I finished my degree I have got more interested in using my maths skill to look at ecology and biology. I think that now I have the freedom to explore the bits of biology and ecology that I enjoy with my research (animal behaviour), I find it much more interesting and fun. At school I didn’t like having to learn stuff I wasn’t interested in!

    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      It depends on the science. I did better in some classes than others. I found physics pretty easy, but not so much biology. Lots of remembering. I did ok but had to work pretty hard for it.
      Like Edd, you can look at my school and university transcripts and see what classes I liked and what classes I really didn’t. 🙂

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I studied biology and chemistry and was quite good at them both. I found chemistry really difficult though, so I had to study hard to get a good grade!

      I didn’t study physics, although I did a wee bit of it in my first year of school… I wasn’t very good at it though! I remember we had a practical where we had to wire a plug and it took me forever!! :S

      Science at university is pretty different from school – you can choose to study the bits that you’re actually interested in! and you don’t need to memorise facts! 🙂

      One of my favourite things about science at school was the funny old videos we had to watch! There’s a BBC comedy called ‘Look Around You’ that makes fun of science vids, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCWA7uevo_Q The bit when he tries to boil an egg amuses me!!

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hi Berrylover22,

      I was quite good at science when I was younger but the more I know now.. the more I realise how little I know and I feel that I am not as good as when I was back in school. Biology is my favourite because I found it interesting and quite easy to follow whereas Chemistry and Physics were quite different!
      Chemistry was fun so I enjoyed it even though I usually get the lowest marks in Chem out of the three sciences.
      Physics was my least favourite 😛 because of all the maths even though it’s still interesting.

      So it is no surprise I ended up doing my Biochemistry degree (no physics!! yey.. maybe just a bit but hardly any) 😛

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I was, at least at most of them. I guess I was good at stuff I was interested in, the other things I didn’t quite see a purpose to, so I had a hard time understanding them. Chemistry never really appealed to me so, I was never good at it.

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