• Question: what got you all interested in science??

    Asked by sophiewillougbhy to Alice JB, Andy, Barbara, James, Jo on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Jo Hulsmans

      Jo Hulsmans answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I have known from a very young age I wanted to become a scientist. When I was 5 my parents took me to an amusement park in Belgium which had a ride with dinosaur statues. I was completely fascinated and the next year I made my mother read out every book I could find in the library about dinosaurs to me. So when I was young I wanted to become a paleontologist, but when I got to the end of high school my interests changed more into biology and chemistry, and that’s how I became a scientist.

    • Photo: James Jennings

      James Jennings answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Digging into the depths of my memory I can remember a few of the key things that gave me the interest in science that I have today :-
      -Taking weekly trips to the local planetarium to look at the artificial starry sky, and be taught about the science of space. Then getting some binoculars and books and teaching myself more!

      – School experiments were important, as science is such a practical subject. Being able to see things happening before your eyes is magic (though it can normally be explained!)

      -I have to admit that there was some influence from the films I watched and video games I played. Though the science in these is often made up, in a way it helps make science look like fun! Now I have discovered that it is indeed alot of fun, even without famous actors!

      Science seems to be appearing more and more on TV and becoming more available to the public. An event like this is one example, I think I would have loved being on the other side of the conversation at your age!

    • Photo: Barbara Guinn

      Barbara Guinn answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I’ve been interested in science since I was 8, it really appealed it to me and I knew I wanted to study it more. I also liked drama and learning french but nothing appealed to me more than science. I read books and drew the body in layers (bones, muscles, nerves, blood supply) on tracing paper because it interested me. My father was an engineer, my Mum a hairdresser and my siblings artistic so I am the slightly odd one out!

    • Photo: Alice Jones Bartoli

      Alice Jones Bartoli answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I became a scientist by accident… I quite liked practical science at school; I liked setting fire to things and I liked biology classes, but if you asked any one of my secondary school teachers, none of them would have expected me to become a scientist.

      When I started studying Psychology, I realised that I could do science. Studying human and animal behaviour, and working out why people think and behave in the way that they do is exciting to me. I realised that I could ask questions about people and design experiments and studies to answer them. I find people interesting; we spent time observing behaviour, experimenting on each other, and studying theories of normal behaviour and mental illness – it was like learning the secrets to being human.

    • Photo: Andy Norton

      Andy Norton answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hey Sophie,

      When I think back, I always remember being sort of interested in science. My Dad used to work for a company making various margarines, spreads, and things like that, and I used to visit his work as a kid. He used to give us a lab coat, a pair of googles, and we used to try and “help” him in the lab (I think that just made a mess!). At some point we got to play with pipettes and measuring cylinders, which I thought was AMAZING when I was a kid (I was a geek, I realise this!). So I always thought that science was pretty cool, and seemed very glamorous to walk around in a lab coat! When I got a bit older, and started doing GCSEs, I realised that I actually wanted to do science; not because I wanted to be making spreads like my Dad, but because I wanted to actually do some cool bits of science that were really exciting to me. And from then onwards, I’ve always wanted to go to Uni and do science, and then be a scientist afterwards.

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