• Question: why did you want to become a scientist? #askneil

    Asked by #shakeesha to Neil, Alan, Ciorsdaidh, Lauren, Leonie, Martin, Shuo on 6 Mar 2018. This question was also asked by jimmy, Catriona.
    • Photo: Neil Keddie

      Neil Keddie answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      Several people have asked me this today, and I’m really trying to remember what first triggered me to try and become a scientist. As long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a mad-scientist. I would play with things in the garden and in the kitchen at home, mixing things and trying little experiments. At school I loved science lessons – especially the practical classes – and I think that just kept my interest in science above everything else.
      When I was choosing what to study at University, I was advised to do a pure science degree first (it was going to be Chemistry or Biology), then I could specialise into other areas later. So that’s how I ended up studying Chemistry.

    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      Like Neil, I was really enthused by science at primary school and even more so at high school. I wanted to know how things around me worked and becoming a scientist seemed like a route to me gaining that knowledge but also letting other people share in the knowledge.

    • Photo: Alan McCue

      Alan McCue answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      I wanted to try and understand why the world is the way it is so I got into science. #whyonlyaskneil 🙂

    • Photo: Lauren Webster

      Lauren Webster answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      I wanted to do something in science from when I was younger. I always liked the aspect of learning something new and being involved in a subject matter. However, the real driver for me becoming a scientist was that medicine saved my life and I wanted to give back to the profession – pay it forward.

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