• Question: How did you get into science?

    Asked by anon-184208 to Tom, sarahhodge, Owen, Nathan, Lorna, Abbie on 5 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Nathan Hook

      Nathan Hook answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      I got exposed physics, chemistry, biology and computer science in school, and did computer science for A-level, so I’ve always been ‘into’ science. I also grew up watching science programmes and reading Focus magazine.

    • Photo: Abbie Jordan

      Abbie Jordan answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      Hi Fran,

      Great question. Ironically I went to uni to do English Literature but changed early on to psychology. I had already done psychology at A Level (my school did not offer it then) and chose my electives in psychology so they let me switch. I now know how lucky I was to switch. After doing psychology, I knew that I loved health research so found my way to paediatic pain research with a Research Assistant job. The rest is history as they say.
      Abbie

    • Photo: Lorna Camus

      Lorna Camus answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      Hi Fran,

      I think it was somewhat by chance if I’m honest!
      I was not very good at all the science subjects in school, often getting bad grades, and I ended up not enjoying them so much.
      However, I was very interested in psychology, and did not realise the extent of psychological science until I arrived at university (I came from France where things are a bit different, and we don’t have secondary classes in psychology at all).
      My four undergraduate years just increased and strengthened my love for the subject and rekindled my interest for science, which is why I decided to do a Master, to train to be a better scientist before going into a PhD.
      I’m very glad I didn’t give up on science in the end, as it’s full of wonder and daily learning! 🙂

    • Photo: Tom Gallagher-Mitchell

      Tom Gallagher-Mitchell answered on 14 Nov 2018:

      Great question. There’s no set route to take into science but one of my masters students recently completed a study on STEM pathways and she found that the biggest factors predicting studying science at uni were parent encouragement, maths confidence and having a science or technology role model.

      I got into psychology because I had an interest in people but I loved experimenting in other sciences so went down this route which allowed me to do both!

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