• Question: What sparked your interest to pursue a career in science?

    Asked by ollymursforever to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 13 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by tammy, angelcookie101, kimanddil, hursl006, loza22, marshmallow11.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      A few things sparked my interest… firstly, all the amazing teachers and lecturers I’ve had throughout my scientific career. My biology teacher at school was really funny (he used to sing songs about photosynthesis!) and kept me interested. When I did zoology at university, I had many great lecturers, including one who sounded just like David Attenborough! One lecturer, called Jo, was very supportive and she encouraged me to do a PhD – I’m glad that she did!

      Teachers and lecturers aside, it was the subject of zoology itself that drew me into wanting a career in science. With so many fascinating animals around (many of which we know very little about!), who wouldn’t want a career studying them? 🙂

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I was always interested in science when at school and I did Maths for my degree. One of the modules we did was on ‘mathematical biology’ – how maths is applied to biological problems to help understand the real world. This fascinated me and made me want to do further study, so I did a PhD (an advanced degree you do by completing a research project). My PhD was about models for animal movement and I got interested in this topic more and more as I studied it.

      I knew I didn’t want a ‘normal’ job and I enjoyed doing science so I carried on with my research and ended up as a lecturer at University! One of the extra things I have to do as well as my science research is to do teaching – imagine if your school teacher also did science research!

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      There was no spark for me, I think I just developed an interest in science over time. I have always wanted to get to the bottom of questions, I knew that this would take time, and eventually I realise that this required science … and here I am 🙂

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I have always enjoyed science lessons (and many other ones like history) when I was younger but then later on I felt that I enjoyed science more so I chose to do it for A levels. Then I enjoyed it even more so I have decided I want to look at how cells work in uni and then… I found cancer really interesting so I studied it further and now I am doing something I really care about which is finding anticancer treatments 🙂

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