• Question: Have you always imagined yourself progressing in Physics and using it as a career?

    Asked by dragonskull20015 to Chris, Dave, David, Fiona, Jack on 16 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Jack Miller

      Jack Miller answered on 16 Jun 2013:


      Yes!

      I’ve always been interested in physics, and loved reading as much as I could about it from a young age. However, I realised while at University that I didn’t really want to carry on down the “traditional” physics research areas — such as astrophysics or laser physics — not because I think anything’s wrong with them, but because I found my area more interesting, and I thought I could make more a difference working at the (very) applied end of nuclear physics research. However, if I’m being honest, I do find myself tempted to move more into medicine — I work with a lot of doctors, and they have a very different perspective on life, and jobs that (if you’re a doctor who does research) aren’t a billion miles away from mine, just…very different, and with a lot less maths (which isn’t a good thing…).

      One of the best things about doing physics is that you’ve never wasted it — physics underlies everything in our universe, and is never “wrong”. If you’re trained as a physicist, you get to appreciate everything in the world (and beyond it), on many different levels: the approaches you learn when doing physics are broadly applicable, from medical research to banking.

      People with physics degrees are very employable, and go on to have a wide range of careers, in physics or otherwise!

      Hope this answers your question,

      — Jack

    • Photo: Dave Farmer

      Dave Farmer answered on 16 Jun 2013:


      Hello dragonskull20015,

      For myself, it’s actually only quite recently that I’ve realised that I want to make a career out of Physics. As a child, I was always interested in finding out how and why things worked and I still am. I guess this is what led me to Physics eventually, but I’ve wanted to be many different things in between.

      At each stage where I have to make a decision though (GCSE, A-Level, after Uni etc..) I’ve always realised that what I enjoy most is learning things about the world, so I’ve always stuck with Physics and I’m very glad that this is the case!

      Dave

    • Photo: David Freeborn

      David Freeborn answered on 17 Jun 2013:


      I’ve always been very interested in science, but my interests have changed a little over time.

      For a while I thought I would be a writer, or a historian. Then I wanted to be a mathematician. I always found it very hard to pick subjects, and I only firmly settled on physics at the age of about 17.

      It was a very good choice though: I can’t imagine any other form of work being this exciting, fulfilling and full of interesting experiences!

    • Photo: Fiona Coomer

      Fiona Coomer answered on 17 Jun 2013:


      I must admit that I count myself as a chemist rather than a physicist (though my research really is on the borderline, and a lot of my colleagues tease me about being a physicist really). At school, I really liked maths, and I thought that studying physics at university would be a way of using this in a practical way.
      When I first went to university, I realised that I much preferred chemistry (subjects at university are often pretty different to how they are at school) as it related to real world problems, and we got the opportunity to make new materials in the lab.
      I started researching magnetic materials as it gives me the opportunity to make new materials, which may be technologically important, and also develop an understanding of how atoms interact.

    • Photo: Chris Mansell

      Chris Mansell answered on 18 Jun 2013:


      I have always just followed my nose. I have spent most of my physics career thinking that I am not good enough to progress any further in physics. I am just finishing my PhD at the moment and I still really like science but I don’t really know where I will end up.

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