• Question: What made you choose science as a career path?

    Asked by Emilycb to Peter, Gaël on 10 Nov 2021.
    • Photo: Gaël Lymer

      Gaël Lymer answered on 10 Nov 2021:

      Bonjour!
      As a kid I wanted to understand the nature I could see around me, I wanted to explore the world 🙂 My grand-dad also communicated me his passion for the sea and for ship, and then in secondary school (14 years old) I had a teach of Earth and Life Science that made me discover Geology and I realised that this career path could help me to combine several of my passion (observing and understanding the Earth, going at sea, travelling).
      All the above combined progressively drove me towards this career path.

    • Photo: Peter Milner

      Peter Milner answered on 11 Nov 2021:

      I was always interested in how things worked. From phones to lights to electricity. After lots of thinking I decided I wanted to study engineering in college and chose electronics as the specialty. From there I learned about photonics which is all about light, and I also learned about semiconductors (really small chips that are in basically every electrical device in the world) and found that really cool! After college I learned about a specific PhD project which was all about light and semiconductors, and using this technology to improve doctors’ tools for diagnosing. I also found biomedical engineering (producing technology to help patients) really interesting as a topic, so this PhD ticked all the boxes!

      If I could give you advice, I would say keep your options open all the time. I never thought I would be doing a PhD but here I am! Find out what interests you, and the only way to do this is to learn as much as you can and don’t limit your options by saying ‘this is definitely what I want to do’ (unless you’re 110% sure!)

Comments