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Asked by flowelsh to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 23 Mar 2011 in Categories: Scientist. This question was also asked by reganmurphy.
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Sarah Thomas answered on 17 Mar 2011:
I realised I first liked science in my first year at High School. It was the first time I had ever learnt about science and I liked doing the experiments. My favourite subjects were always the ones where you got to do things like in art, music and technical. The subjects I didn’t like were maths and english!
When I got to pick my subjects for my standard grades (GCSEs) I picked the subjects I liked including Chemistry and Biology. I didn’t pick Physics because I though the experiments were boring!
I always thought Biology was really interesting, learning how living things work, and Chemistry was just fun! Playing with bunsen burners, things changing colour, doing the flame test etc! And my science teachers were really energetic and enthusiastic, and quite laid back and I liked that.
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Alan Winfield answered on 21 Mar 2011:
Hi Flowelsh
In fact I’m an engineer first and foremost – I first became interested in electronics as a boy and started making gadgets when I was maybe 14 or 15. And I’m still making gadgets 40 years later – but now they’re mostly robot gadgets.
But your question was about becoming a scientist and, yes I do now think I myself as a scientist. It’s really only in the last 20 years that I became deeply interested in science – mostly in fact from working with other (proper) scientists. You see robotics isn’t something that’s only done by engineers any more. In our robot lab in Bristol we have all kinds of scientists working on robots. Bio-chemists – working on robots that eat food for example. Also neuroscientists working on robots that model (very small) parts of brains. And in my area of swarm robotics I work with ant biologists to try and understand how ant colonies do all the amazing stuff they do, so we can try and use the same principles in robots.
So the reason I’m now – I think – a scientist is because robotics needs the contribution of a very wide range of subjects, not just engineering. And working with all kinds of scientists has, I think, made me a scientist.
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Caspar Addyman answered on 23 Mar 2011:
Back when i was a school I quite liked the idea of being a scientist or a mathematician but it all seemed far too difficult. At that time, I had no idea that there even was such a thing as developmental psychology (aka baby science) so i would never have thought I’d be doing something like this for a living.
I’ve been doing science full time for nearly six years and haven’t been bored once. Best decision I’ve ever made
So straight my first degree in math i went to work in banking and finance because I though I wanted to have lots of money. But i was soon getting bored with it so I went back to university at night school (at birkbeck in london) to study psychology. I started out just doing it for my own interest. But i started to find the mind and the brain so much more interesting than my day job that I quit banking and studied full time for my phd.
Comments
08broadd commented on :
Do you find science boring sometimes ??
Caspar commented on :
There are boring parts when we have to analyse lots and lots of numbers or carefully prepare an experiment for the 100th time. but every job has boring parts. and overall science has many more interesting bits to outweigh the boring ones.