• Question: What advice can you give to a young person looking to study science in the near future or at this present moment in time?

    Asked by chloej2002 to Claire, Elizabeth, Manolis, Mark, Zach on 13 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Mark Wallace

      Mark Wallace answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Reading about what new things science can do right now is a great way to get an idea of what you might be doing as a scientist in the future. I remember reading a lot, and being excited to watch a lot of really good documentaries when I was young. Definitely helped me be inspired to carry on studying science.

      You could also pick one area and see what you can learn about it. The internet is amazing, and was only just starting when I was at school. Want to know about how a disease works, volcanoes, or black holes, or the possibility of life on other planets…. go see what you can find, there’s tonnes of information out there now that’s so easy to get.

      Science is about being able to do experiments where you can carefully describe what you’ve done, and what you’ve figured out so that other people can then check what you’ve done, so that they can believe you. To do that well, you need the skills. You’ll pick up a lot of that in science lessons, but you’d be surprised how much maths you need to do a really good job of it. Getting good at maths and science would be a great start. So unfortunately the answer to a lot of this question is to work hard! It’s worth it 🙂

    • Photo: Zach Dixon

      Zach Dixon answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      I have to agree with Mark! Go online, watch videos and read things. Get an idea of the type of science you like best. Biology, chemistry or physics, this will help you chose the right A-levels and eventually University degree!

      As long as you are interested in science and learning about it at school you have the chance of becoming a scientist – good luck to you, we need as many scientists as we can get 🙂

    • Photo: Elizabeth Ratcliffe

      Elizabeth Ratcliffe answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Hi chloej2002, that is an excellent question.
      I also agree with Mark and Zach, there is so much variety in science go and find out what bits really get your brain going and that you want to know more about, this will help you discover what you prefer and help you make your choices. I think its good to get a good foundation in science, maths, english, and other subjects like drama – sounds odd but a lot of science is talking and writing, telling people what you do and getting up and presenting to people, you can get these skills from drama and english.
      When I was looking at University, it helped me to know some scientific courses were for specific jobs, and that I could either go into that job or carry on studying science. I liked the fact that I had choices as its difficult to know what you’ll want to do afterwards.
      I did a mircobiology degree – every hospital has microbiologists and there are also lots of microbiologists working in the food, water and drug industries.
      It might be useful to know that I work with lots of different types of scientists. In my office we have different types of biologists, engineers, mathematicians – and they all have different backgrounds and made very different choices. So I don’t think you can go wrong if you find out and follow your interests and even if you end up on a different path, you can always change it.

    • Photo: Claire Vinten

      Claire Vinten answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      I think what the other scientists have all said is really good advice. You will need to put in some hard work, but it will be worth it if it is a subject you enjoy. There is no need to specialise too soon, as Elizabeth says, get experience doing lots of different things and find out which ones make you really excited and keen to learn more.

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