• Question: What Lead You To be a Scientist !?

    Asked by egray to Werner, Carla, Madgie, Nick, Vicky on 11 Nov 2013. This question was also asked by chwalker, tillieissocoollike, singjam, jasminh, squidderboii, blenky, zanbabe, kylewatts, koalas3, hero528, oliviahutton020202, aarontomlinson1, sensational27, maxatrillion, snakesrepic, jeffereypig123.
    • Photo: Marlene Lorgen

      Marlene Lorgen answered on 11 Nov 2013:

      I enjoyed studying sciences at school (I did biology, physics and chemistry), but biology was the one I really liked and seemed to be good at! However, when I first when to university I decided to study law as I had the grades which meant I could, but I really didn’t like it. So I had a think about what I really enjoyed and I ended up studying marine biology. I have always loved the sea and wanted to understand how it works and learn more about the organisms which live in it 🙂

    • Photo: Werner Muller

      Werner Muller answered on 11 Nov 2013:

      This is a very good question. I think you are somehow a scientist or not. Most important is to be curious and to pay attention to details. It is amazing how much one can find out by simply looking very carefully at details. And it is important not to believe what you see based on one observation. Sometimes things are more complicated than initially thought. If you study many systems you will find that certain patterns repeat (reinventing the wheel).

    • Photo: Vicky Forster

      Vicky Forster answered on 12 Nov 2013:

      I have always really enjoyed science and been quite curious about the world. When I was younger, i was really excited by space and astronomy, and wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. However, when i was eight I got ill with leukaemia, which is a cancer of the blood and became fascinated with what was happening to me. I asked the doctors lots of questions about my cancer and my treatment (I must have been a very annoying patient!), but they were very patient with me and took lots of time to answer all of my questions. This fuelled my interest in biology and medicine and everything else kind of fell into place. I studied biomedical sciences at university, which is quite a broad medical science degree, then decided to do a PhD in leukaemia research – as i had a personal interest in it. It’s great to have detailed knowledge about how leukaemia works now and to know more about why it probably happened to me in the first place.

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