• Question: What was your dream job when you were younger?

    Asked by anon-380563 on 1 Feb 2024. This question was also asked by vast1stow.
    • Photo: Erin Pallott

      Erin Pallott answered on 1 Feb 2024:


      I wanted to be a palaeontologist when I was 5 (before I could spell it). Then I wanted to be a librarian, then an engineer, then a punk singer. I only figured out I wanted to research biology when it came to applying for university.

    • Photo: Georgia Lambert

      Georgia Lambert answered on 1 Feb 2024:


      Mine changed pretty often! I wanted to be a pilot when I was really little because I liked the idea of flying, then I wanted to be an ice skater after watching the Olympics one year, then I wanted to be a singer because I liked music class at school, then I wanted to be a teacher because I thought my teachers were pretty great people in my last few years at school, then I wanted to be a neuroscientist (getting closer to my current job), then I wanted to be a behavioural ecologist (someone who studies why animals do what they do). And now I am a behavioural ecolgist! I wonder what I will want to be next…

    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 1 Feb 2024:


      I guess that I always wanted to be a scientist… at high school I thought more about being an analytical chemist… but at university, I realised that I was a physical chemist and liked research so I guess I got my dream in being a research scientist.

    • Photo: Bruno Silvester Lopes

      Bruno Silvester Lopes answered on 1 Feb 2024:


      From a very young age…probably 7ish…always wanted to become a scientist and discover new things. I’ve discovered many, including 2 new species of bacteria which are called Acinetobacter terrae and Acinetobacter terrestris 🙂

    • Photo: David Bremner

      David Bremner answered on 2 Feb 2024:


      I wanted to be a chef and worked in a few kitchens as part time or summer jobs while i was still at school.

      Working on the science of food and how what we eat impacts on our health seems like the next best thing.

    • Photo: Alexander De Bruin

      Alexander De Bruin answered on 2 Feb 2024:


      I’ve always wanted to be a scientist! I briefly considered going into music / music education, but science won in the end

    • Photo: Chigozie Onuba

      Chigozie Onuba answered on 2 Feb 2024:


      To be a clinician

    • Photo: Rachel Edwards

      Rachel Edwards answered on 2 Feb 2024:


      Firstly I wanted to be an artist. Then I wanted to be an astronaut, but I never grew tall enough (did you know they have minimum and maximum heights?). Then I wanted to be an architect, which I would probably have quite enjoyed, but it was really difficult to get into back then unless you could afford to work for free to get experience. I became a physicist slightly by accident – I loved physics at school, then again at university, and kept on doing physics because I really enjoy it and jobs appeared at the right time!

    • Photo: Hannah Scholes

      Hannah Scholes answered on 2 Feb 2024:


      My dream job changed quite often, but it always sort of involved medicine or healthcare. I first thought I wanted to be a nurse or a vet, then thought more about medicine as I got older. Now, I work in medicine but more ‘behind-the-scenes’. I don’t see patients face-to-face, I help the doctors and other medical staff to diagnose and work out why people are unwell, and then monitor their treatments to see how their condition is improving.

    • Photo: Viviene Dela Cruz

      Viviene Dela Cruz answered on 4 Feb 2024:


      At some point when I was younger, I actually wanted to be a sports caster, the one on the sidelines in a basketball game broadcasting to people basketball game updates 😀

    • Photo: Harriet Gamble

      Harriet Gamble answered on 5 Feb 2024:


      When I was younger my dream job was to be an astronaut. It is actually still my dream job and I plan to apply to be an astronaut in the future. For now I work on designing and building satellites so I am really pleased I get to work on technology for space.

    • Photo: Sharron Kenny

      Sharron Kenny answered on 5 Feb 2024:


      i always wanted to be a vet when i was younger. when i was studying at university i wanted at 1st to be a forensic scientist. until i realised the tv shows. show one person doing everything and thats actually 2/3 peoples seperate jobs. which lead me to the laboratory side of science and the running of analytical scientific equipment, and that is where i found my neiche.

      if i could go back now i would have quite liked to be a veterinary pathologist as they look at why things die and as a farmer its always so useful

    • Photo: Festus Ejikemeuwa

      Festus Ejikemeuwa answered on 5 Feb 2024:


      My dream job was to work in the oil and gas. I was fortunate to achieve that dream and did a lot of work in the offshore / onshore industry before moving into pharmaceuticals using the soft skills I developed there. Now I am in the chemical and sustainable technologies sector. The skills sets are transferable across different sectors.

    • Photo: Michael Schubert

      Michael Schubert answered on 5 Feb 2024:


      I had a lot of dream jobs! I wanted to be all different kinds of scientist (a geneticist, a palaeontologist, an astrobiologist), a doctor, a dentist, a writer, an actor, and even a forest ranger. Luckily, by studying several different sciences and then becoming a science communicator as well, I got to do more than one of my dream jobs!

    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 6 Feb 2024:


      An astronaut or a nurse.
      I ended up being a aerospace physiologist and a physiotherapist- so I guessed pretty close!

    • Photo: Sophie Spinks

      Sophie Spinks answered on 6 Feb 2024:


      My dream job was to be a scientist in the NHS! I wanted to wear a lab coat all day, walk around alot and help people! Playing with chemicals and getting involved in experiments was a bonus!

    • Photo: Kirsty Ross

      Kirsty Ross answered on 8 Feb 2024:


      First I wanted to be a florist, then a midwife, then a scientist.

    • Photo: Karen Adler

      Karen Adler answered on 11 Feb 2024:


      I wanted to be an astronaut, of course! 😁 And then I wanted to be a doctor, and then I had no idea. I only got into my current field (infectious disease research) after uni, when I had a class that talked a bit about bacteria and I thought it was interesting!

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