• Question: why did you become a scientist

    Asked by ella d on 11 Nov 2021.
    • Photo: Justine Mathoux

      Justine Mathoux answered on 11 Nov 2021: last edited 11 Nov 2021 2:07 pm


      I always like science at school but I can’t say that I always wanted to be a scientist. When I was a child, I wanted to be an architect. Growing up, I’ve realised that some diseases cannot be treated correctly. I decided to become a scientist in order to find new treatments to help sick person and their familly.

    • Photo: Md Kamruzzaman

      Md Kamruzzaman answered on 11 Nov 2021:


      Science has been my favourite subject, and when I was young, I always wondered how ‘just swallowing a tablet/capsule’ may cure my fever or pain!!
      This inspired me to pursue a career in pharmacy, and I gained an understanding how medicines work in the human body. I understand there are various things that needs to be consider when we prepare a tablet/capsule and I wanted to explore this filed to make them better.

    • Photo: Cyrille Thinnes

      Cyrille Thinnes answered on 11 Nov 2021:


      I am a very curious person and always wanted to explore, especially the outdoors and nature in general. This combined with having very supportive people around me, like my science teachers and later my professors and tutors made me seize the opportunity to do it as my job!

    • Photo: Gaël Lymer

      Gaël Lymer answered on 12 Nov 2021:


      I became a scientist geologist because this career allowed me to combine several of my passions: being outdoor, understand the Earth and the environment, go at sea on ships, travelling, looking for fossils and minerals 🙂
      I think the an important thing in life is to do things we like 🙂

    • Photo: Ohood Alharbi

      Ohood Alharbi answered on 15 Nov 2021: last edited 15 Nov 2021 4:40 pm


      Dear Ella, This is a great question! I’ve always loved experimenting since I was a kid. I had great imagination and that’s what you need as a scientist.. Interesting enough we evolve as a human being and I remember after I started going to school I fell in love with learning and I wanted to be a teacher, during my elementary school, this was because 3 of my father’s four sisters are teachers. In my intermediate school I wanted to be a doctor, my sister was studying medicine and we had few in the family, and it is always perceived to be a Nobel profession to heal and help people and it was not until last year of my high school when I started re-considering being a researcher/scientist… But that was not until the last year of my high school when I started to feel that I want to be a scientist, get involoved in discoveries, but this was not fore sure as I was trying to find the area I want to specialise in.. During the summmer after high school graduation I was reading a lot about genetic engineering, but this was not taught at Universities as a degree. In my undergraduate degree I first studied science, then I was accepted in Computer Statistics, after two months switched to Biochemistry, and after three weeks I transferred to Medical Laboratory and during my internship (after four years), I specialised in Molecular Biology/Microbiology/Virology). During my graduate studies I specialised further in Nutrition and lastly Nutrigenomics.. using all these years, I thought I will be academic mainly (teaching) while involved in research, but then when I started to see the beauty of knowledge transferes, and answering questions that no one answered before, collaborating with other scientist to empower communities and support clinical practice and later on getting involved in public speaking and spreading knowledge to the public ,, then I started to realised how beautiful is it to be a scientist.

      Always remember, that it is not when you did we know that we want to be a scientist it is about falling in love with the journey of learning more about yourself and what you can offer the world. I hope I was helpful by explaining further, 😉

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