• Question: When did you first decide that you wanted to become a scientist?

    Asked by anon-244771 to Ondrej, Jordan, Eleanor, Ed, Christine, Alice on 17 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Edward Banks

      Edward Banks answered on 17 Mar 2020:

      Honestly, I’m not sure I ever really wanted to be a scientist directly- I just wanted to learn more and more about the universe and how it works. I’ve been fascinated by space since I was at least 4!

    • Photo: Christine Beavers

      Christine Beavers answered on 17 Mar 2020: last edited 17 Mar 2020 12:07 pm

      So my dad was a chemical technician at a major oil company. His work was to test fuel injector cleaners for cars. Every year they would have an open house, and he would bring us in for activities. One year he got to show me around his lab. He opened up a drawer full of vials- one was labled platinum chloride. I knew that platinum was a shiny valuable metal, and chlorine was a poisonous gas- anything that could make a colorless powder out of those two things had to be magic!

      This was the beginning of my fascination with chemistry. It still excites me.

    • Photo: Eleanor Jones

      Eleanor Jones answered on 18 Mar 2020:

      I think I’m similar to Ed. There wasn’t really a point where I could say I definitely wanted to be a scientist – it just sort of happened. At every stage of my life where I had to make choices about my education, I always just picked to continue with science-based subjects because they were what I enjoyed. And now, here I am. Still choosing to do science!

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