AsianScientist (Apr. 22, 2016) – So I have previously written about interacting with people who aren’t scientists and their perceptions of us, but what I didn’t go into is explaining to them how we became scientists. And this situation came up for me recently when I was attending a party of some sort.
While making small talk with an ‘I Admire What You Do’ person, they asked me why I decided to pursue research science as a career as opposed to something else like medicine or some other professional health field. I have to admit, this question threw me.
Unbelievably, my brain made some strange connections and the reply that tumbled out of my mouth was “Well, I was really nerdy as a child.”
Really. *Sigh*
Searching for the spark
This got me thinking about the spark that drives science-y people into this career path. Why do people get fascinated by the things they do and decide to become a statistician or a microbiologist or an engineer? Let’s just agree—no one becomes a scientist for the money or job security or glamour. And like any good scientist, to get the answer I conducted an investigation over cake and coffee to get perspectives other than my own (never forget the importance of n).
This influence of childhood personal events in determining career choices was a common answer.
“When I was about 11 or 12 my older brother got a new computer and I inherited his old one,” said one of my subjects.
“Of course, because it was a few years old it wasn’t as fast as I wanted it to be and as a child I had limited pocket money to spend on it. What followed next were years of taking the computer apart and putting it back together again after modifications.
“It seemed pretty obvious that I should go into computer engineering after that!”
This was also particularly strong in the biomedical people in my subject pool. People talked about family members being diagnosed with various conditions and therefore wanting to become doctors or to conduct research in the particular field to help them out.
“My family has a sex-linked mutation that has resulted in only the males having central and peripheral problems and I thought it was interesting,” said a female neuroscientist.
“And then when I was studying neuroanatomy, I had a moment where I realized it was amazing that this was making us who we are.”
The profession of family members was also not surprisingly a strong factor—people talked about following parents and siblings into their fields. For example, doctors and pharmacists tended to follow each other, but this was by no means defining.
“My parents were doctors and so it wasn’t unusual for me to enter medical school,” recounted cancer research group leader.
“What was unusual was me fainting during the first cadaver dissection. Good thing I don’t need to be a medical doctor to work in the lab!”
Driven by curiosity
For others, the how and why they got into their field was unclear but no less strong.
A theoretical physicist mused on my questions, “I have wanted to be this since I was young to the point that I can’t actually remember wanting to be anything other than a scientist and physics seemed to answer the biggest questions.”
He expressed his personal experience of being initially curious about specific topics and then enjoying learning how things worked as well as having respect for various historical figures, many of whom were scientists.
“It’s strange in the sense that you don’t really have any idea of what being a scientist actually involves when you’re young, but the more you learn, the more you enjoy it. Then you know it is the right career choice.”
Being nurtured to follow this stream of curiosity was expressed by many others. Many talked about having family members and teachers encouraging their interest in particular topics, which takes me back to the story I started with. After some awkward nervous laughter, my conversation partner asked me to expand on what I meant by being a nerdy child.
Memories of a childhood with blistering hot summers which were assuaged by visits to a local building with free entry and the best air-conditioning around—the library—filled my mind. Hours of going through the shelves and moving from topic to topic followed by my parents giving me a bag to carry all the books I wanted to borrow. Then once I was finished with that topic, I had to learn more about what that book mentioned on another topic. And then attending a school where girls were encouraged to study advanced mathematics and sciences before going to university and finding my niche. My conversation partner declared it a worthy tale.
Of course, sometimes the spark wasn’t an internal awakening to the awesomeness of science at all but something much more relatable.
Said one researcher, “My brother said girls couldn’t be good at science; I just wanted to prove him wrong!”
This article is from a monthly column called The Sometimes Serious Scientist. Click here to see the other articles in this series.
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Source: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Shutterstock.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
