• Question: How has science helped you to achieve your goals?

    Asked by anon-288219 on 10 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Mohan Sridharan

      Mohan Sridharan answered on 10 Mar 2021: last edited 10 Mar 2021 12:39 pm

      Hi Jessica,

      I have two main goals in pursuing my current scientific career. The first goal is to figure out how things work in my discipline: robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and more broadly computing. The second (discipline-specific) goal is to equip robots with the ability to operate with little to no human supervision, and to collaborate with and assist humans in different tasks.

      My training in science and mathematics in school and university helped prepare me for this work, but the goals have not been achieved; it is an ongoing effort!

      Regards,
      –Mohan

    • Photo: Felicity Hunter

      Felicity Hunter answered on 10 Mar 2021:

      Great question! I’d say science has helped me to become a more confident person and has excelled my career. From studying science subjects at A levels and University, I gained strong skills in many important areas including problem solving, critical thinking and communication. For example, I am now able to confidently deliver presentations to crowds of people to explain my work which is something I struggled with as a young person. Studying science can prepare you for many different careers both within and outside of science! Many scientists go into careers such as banking, accountancy, law and many more.

    • Photo: Jess Buddle

      Jess Buddle answered on 10 Mar 2021:

      Hey! I always wanted to make a lasting difference to the world in some way, and i know that doing a PhD achieves this because im researching the unknown, and my findings will push science forward and contribute to knowledge! It will also save lives indirectly later on too, since im studying a new antibiotic 🙂

    • Photo: Karen Burstow

      Karen Burstow answered on 10 Mar 2021:

      I think studying science at university has helped make me into a more confident, independent and knowledgable person! It helped me to attain an interesting and well-paid job, working alongside other brilliant scientists! My other goal is to do more travelling and I hope to be able to do this through work when I reach a more senior level.

    • Photo: Claire Price

      Claire Price answered on 11 Mar 2021:

      People don’t realise this about me, but I am really shy. I find talking to new people really difficult. But being a scientist has really helped me with that. I have to talk to all different people about my work and whilst that isn’t easy to me, being made to do it has made me far more confident and able to do it (even if I still feel nervous…).

    • Photo: Alba Park de la Torriente

      Alba Park de la Torriente answered on 12 Mar 2021:

      I think science gives a very useful skill for anything in life: learning to think analytically and to be creative to find solutions. So, yeah, I do think that my scientific training has helped me achieve many personal things in life.

    • Photo: Jo Brodie

      Jo Brodie answered on 18 Mar 2021:

      I think when I started doing science I didn’t really have any particular goals other than to do something that I enjoyed, and to find out a bit more about the world – and science certainly helped me achieve that.
      ~
      But new goals can emerge as we go along in life. When I became one of the science communicators working for Diabetes UK my job was to explain the science of diabetes to anyone who had a question (often people with diabetes). I learned that people felt reassured by talking to a scientist (in addition to their doctor / nurse of course, we couldn’t give medical advice) and it made me happy to do something useful for people directly.
      ~
      Now I help teachers and young people learn about the huge range of ways in which people use computers by explaining computer science topics in a way that anyone can understand, even if they don’t know much about computing themselves. Computing is a really important topic and I want to make sure people feel confident in approaching it if they want to find out more, without feeling that computing “isn’t for them”. It’s for everyone.
      ~
      Jo

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