• Question: What helped you discover your love for science?

    Asked by jaeeeeelad to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 13 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by melissacaisley, alex1998, daidai, aziz7r2.
    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 9 Jun 2011:

      I was interested in computers before I knew I was interested in science. When I was in school I wanted to make the worlds first intelligent computer, so I wrote a program called “Morph, the artificially intelligent dot”.

      Morph wasn’t intelligent though – he just chased after food on the screen, and made more Morphs. Eventually there were too many Morphs for the amount of food, and they all started to starve. When the number of Morphs went down again, there was more food for each of them, and the number went up again. It wasn’t until about 10 years later I realised that I had been doing a thing called computer simulation. In a tiny tiny way it’s the same idea that people use to work out real science problems.

      So I guess I’ve always loved trying things out, and trying to figure things out. It didn’t seem like what we did in science in school though, so I didn’t know I was doing science.

    • Photo: Kimberley Bryon

      Kimberley Bryon answered on 9 Jun 2011:

      An excellent question.

      I don’t really remember when I first got interested in science but I guess that I always liked to know the answers to questions. At secondary school I had a really lovely chemistry teacher who made lessons really fun. I started to good grades in Chemistry and she persuaded me to take triple science for GCSE.

      It was when I started doing my GCSEs that I really started to love science, I really loved how it can help me find out the answers to lots of different questions. I really liked the practical side of it, actually doing experiments rather than writing essays or copying notes from a board. The harder I worked at it the better I got and it is very difficult not to like something that you are good at 😛

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      Hey!

      I guess I was always really interested in the world around me – about how animals lived, how we got sick and how doctors and vets could help make us better. I actually hated science to start with in school…I liked it least of all my subjects – but that may have been partly to do with the fact that my science teachers were old, really scary and a little bit weird.

      But when I was 14 I started doing Biology and Chemistry for Standard Grade (Scottish GCSEs) and I really enjoyed them – particularly Biology. I found it really interesting how the complex little systems inside our cells work. It was FASCINATING! I kinda thought…”this is the sort of thing I want to” do but I didn’t know any scientists, my parents hadn’t gone to University and I had no idea about what you even called this part of science!!

      My teachers had changed at this point – they were still old (and weird!) but, because I was interested, I discovered that they weren’t scary at all and we actually ended up getting on really well. I felt I could ask them about stuff I didn’t understand and they actually cared about how well I did and were excited to explain things to us and find interactive ways of doing it.

      So when I left school I went to University and did a Biology degree – I met more scientists, learned stuff and had fun and thats how I got to where I am now I guess.

      My advice is do something you enjoy – that might not be science, it might be being a hairdresser or an electrician or an artist …but whatever you do, work hard to try and do something you LIKE! Sometimes you don’t know what you like until you try – but don’t worry about it if you feel you don’t know what you want to be just yet!

      Keep it real,

      😀

    • Photo: Julia Griffen

      Julia Griffen answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      Super question!

      I had a really inspiring chemistry teacher at school which helped loads.
      However I also found I was better at science than other subjects, and therefore enjoyed it more. (Many people find this).

      This isn’t all that inspiring though…. It can be summed up: I enjoyed the skills I used when ‘doing’ science. I like problem solving, analysing and asking questions. Simples.

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi jaeeeeelad! (why so many eeee’s? 😉 ). I was never much into science before a really great teacher showed me how fun and amazing it is. Prior to that I was always good at science but wasn’t that passionate about it. I liked to do other things like draw and paint, or play video games, and read books. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still love all those other things, but when I was 17 my first physics teacher opened my eyes to a love of discovery!! From then on I was hooked. Once you learn the power of scientific thinking it can really change you and make you want to discover things for yourself – things no person has ever known before. That’s a powerful thought!

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