Question: @Ciaran , what age do you have to be to be a scientists ?

Ciarán O'Brien answered on 17 Nov 2014:

You can start at any age, just asking questions and reading books to find out how things work!

It’s hard to get a job as a scientist these days without a college degree, so at the very least you’d need to get through secondary school, which most kids leave around 16-18, depending on how young they were going in and whether they repeated or not. Your chances are way better if you get a qualification in college, which could last from 1-4 years depending on the type, so You could technically graduate from college by the age of 19 or 20, although it’s usually closer to 23-25. You should have very little trouble getting a job in science at that age (although it might not be a very nice job!).

I was a bit silly in that I started working as a security guard after I graduated in 2003 instead of looking harder for a science job. I was 25 when I realised that this was rubbish and I should go back to college to sort out another degree. After that, I kinda decided I should stay in college so I moved to Cork to do another degree, started working as a research assistant, and then started my 4th degree, this PhD I’m doing right now at the age of 32 🙂