• Question: How long have you wanted to follow this career path

    Asked by anon-328813 on 7 Jun 2022.
    • Photo: Karin Purshouse

      Karin Purshouse answered on 7 Jun 2022:

      I wanted to be a doctor since I was about 14. My mum tells me she wasn’t surprised at all, as apparently even as a kid I was endlessly curious about people, health problems and how the body worked. But science as a career is something I came to when I was already at medical school. I took a year out of medicine after my fourth year to study my science degree, and the rest followed from there. I hope that answers your question!

    • Photo: Jocelyn Bisson

      Jocelyn Bisson answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I realised I wanted to be a vet when I was around 15, I never thought I’d end up doing a PhD and pursuing more lab based science though (I only decided on that about 3 years ago!)

    • Photo: Erminia Romano

      Erminia Romano answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I wanted to be a Biologist and do research since I was 15. This passion started thanks to my Biology Teacher in the high school. She inspired me.

    • Photo: Annabel Black

      Annabel Black answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I decided I wanted to follow a career in biology when I was in my 4th year of high school (around age 15) purely because biology was a subject I really enjoyed! I only decided on lab based research and focussing on cancer when I was in my third year of university. One great thing about research is all of the different paths people take to get here from traditional undergrads to doctors/vets and people who have had an entirely different career already who decide clinical/biological research is a passion they want to follow.

    • Photo: Saadia Karim

      Saadia Karim answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I decided I wanted to work in the Biological research field in my last year of secondary school. I was 17 and I had just started Higher Biology.

    • Photo: Kat Worth

      Kat Worth answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I originally thought I wanted to study medicine and be a doctor because I wasn’t really sure what other career paths were out there for people who enjoyed science at school. It wasn’t untill one of the universities that rejected me sent me some options of other courses that I could study at their university that I realised how many different scientific subjects there are to study that interested me. I was particulalry intrigued by one course related to cancer biology as I thought that it would be more interesting than normal biomedicine (which it was!) and that’s how I first got interested in oncology research!

    • Photo: Maria Peiris Pages

      Maria Peiris Pages answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      Hi Amy! To be honest not even when I finished university I knew I wanted to do research. I felt that is what I would like to most but to be sure I did first a Master in Research (in Biochemistry). I enjoyed it so much that I then decided to pursue a career in research!

    • Photo: Tammy Piper

      Tammy Piper answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I didn’t have a career path set out to be honest. I just took advantage of opportunities that came my way to see where they would lead.

    • Photo: Ben Futcher

      Ben Futcher answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I never have had a set career path. I think being flexible, open to lots of different opportunities and pursuing things that interest you as a young person is the best way to be! I got interested in biochemistry and epigenetics before university, I then developed other interests after I got there. As I have learned more about research and also myself I have realised I would be happy to pursue other jobs not just inside a lab.

    • Photo: Sophie Richardson

      Sophie Richardson answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I wanted to study a biology based subject at university probably from the middle of my GCSEs. I never planned to do a PhD when I started at university. I applied for some at the end, but had no luck. So I decided to work for some science companies instead. About 1.5 years into my job at Cancer Research UK, I saw a PhD advertised and decided to go for it! And now here I am.

      Sometimes, it’s difficult to plan an exact career path, and sometimes you change your mind. That’s perfectly okay! As others have said, it’s good to be flexible and keep an open mind. Even if you enjoy science, you can find lots of different jobs that are outside the lab. The best thing to do is try something out, and if it doesn’t work out try something else.

    • Photo: Chelsea Gerada

      Chelsea Gerada answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      For me I have always been interested in science/ biology but I never knew for sure that I wanted to pursue research until I did a research project at university.

    • Photo: Rachel Harris

      Rachel Harris answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      When I was 16 I was thinking about becoming a doctor, but after doing work experience I realized that wasn’t for me. I did my degree in biochemistry not really knowing what I would do next, but I suppose it wasn’t until I was in the final year that I thought about going on to do a Ph.D. and staying in the research field.

    • Photo: Algernon Bloom

      Algernon Bloom answered on 8 Jun 2022:

      I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a long time.
      I went to university to do engineering because I enjoyed it but realised I didn’t really want to do that as a career so switched to maths because I always wanted to know why something would work down to the smallest detail.

      After my undergrad I then decided that I wanted to have a more direct impact in the work I was doing so went to applied maths for my masters.

      I still didn’t really know what area but when I was looking around for PhD I knew I wanted to work in something like cancer research and I wanted to do codding. That is when I found a PhD that did both and I became a computational biologist. So I was probably 25/26 by the time I knew what I wanted to do.

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