• Question: Is being a scientist your dream job or would you do something else if you had the choice?

    Asked by wisely to Alice JB, Andy, Barbara, James, Jo on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by michel1, kamran, hollib.
    • Photo: James Jennings

      James Jennings answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I would say being a scientist is very close to my dream job, though I’m not there yet! A secure job as a research scientist at a university/company would probably be perfect for me. I wouldn’t say no to a nice wage, but thats not my only motivation!

    • Photo: Andy Norton

      Andy Norton answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Wow, that’s a tough question! I quite want to say that I’d like to be a Premier League football player but, as I basically have two left feet, I know that that isn’t actually going to happen ever…

      In reality, yes, I agree with James – spending my life looking into exciting bits of science, discovering new things, going to conferences to talk about it, meeting excited young people to explain it to – that’s pretty close to being my dream job. If I had a nice wage to go with that, then I’d be very very happy.

    • Photo: Barbara Guinn

      Barbara Guinn answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I would still be a scientist. I have considered other jobs when things weren’t going so well. I lost my job in 2008 and thought about some other options but to be honest I was heart-broken as I just wanted to be a scientist and carry on with my research. So I spent my time working to get back into a science job, carried on working on my research and surprisingly managed it! I now have an (almost) permanent job and I am very happy.

    • Photo: Alice Jones Bartoli

      Alice Jones Bartoli answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      It seems that it might be 🙂
      I like being able to follow the aspects of science that I like best; talking about my research, working with students, working directly with schools and children.

      Sometimes I think that I’d like to have been some sort of forensic scientist, and sometimes during the hardest times of writing my PhD, I was quite tempted to give up and do something totally different – it’s not always been really easy. I’m very lucky to have a job that I love so much – that’s why I’m doing this, to show that it’s fun and possible to have a good career in science.

    • Photo: Jo Hulsmans

      Jo Hulsmans answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      What I’m doing right now is very much what I want to do. The work can be a little unstable sometimes, because you are at the mercy of the people who are in charge of the research grants so maybe when i’m older I would like something with a bit more security, but right now I’m loving it. Another thing that I love is that I am getting the opportunity to travel a lot because of science. Studying as a bioscience engineer in belgium gave me the opportunity to travel to Togo and Cameroon, and now I get to go to conferences to present my work.

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