• Question: what age did you start being a scientist

    Asked by anon-205639 to Russell, Kathryn, Gabriel on 4 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Russell Arnott

      Russell Arnott answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      I guess the first time that I felt like a “scientist” was in Year 8 when I started to learn about the Periodic Table in Chemistry.
      That was age 12!

    • Photo: Kathryn Boast

      Kathryn Boast answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      I don’t think I *really* felt like a scientist until I started doing scientific research when I was working on my PhD (which is a qualification that teaches you how to be a researcher). I guess that would be when I was 23. Of course I studied science all through school, and I studied physics at university, but I think I would have described myself as a “student” then rather than a “scientist”.
      Anyone can be a scientist at any age though – all you have to do is ask questions and look for scientific answers!

    • Photo: Gabriel Gallardo

      Gabriel Gallardo answered on 5 Mar 2019: last edited 5 Mar 2019 3:46 am

      I used to play with water in the sink and bathtub to see how it flows and how it goes down the drain. This was when I was maybe 8? These were my mini-experiments that helped me understand the world.

      I first started doing actual science when I was 20. I was in university when I first came to the lab I work at now (CERN). It was then that I learned what actual scientists do. I thought it was pretty cool so I stuck with it.

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