When did you leave Chesterton Community College?

I left in 2011.

What is your current job title or field?

Molecular Biologist

Did you know as a teenager which career you wanted to pursue or did you come to realise this later on?

No, I originally took Biology because I wanted to do Psychology at university. But Biology gets more and more interesting the further you go with it (for me, GCSE = fine, A level = cool! uni = amaaaaaaaaazing), and I went off Psychology when I realised quite how much statistics you have to do, and quite how insignificant (statistically) all the findings are. I also did German A level and thought about doing it at uni, but then decided it was easier to continue German outside of formal education than to continue Biology.

And here I am now, a molecular biologist living in Berlin. Psychology, incidentally, is also something you can pursue outside of a career. My interest was more in people, and I ended up being trained by, and volunteering for Samaritans until I left the UK (my German isn’t good enough to do that here). Not studying something doesn’t mean you totally jettison it from your life.

How did you start on your career?

I did my undergrad, then a PhD at Edinburgh, then took a year to go travelling (highly recommend, also highly recommend gap years before uni. Having experience from internships and summer research projects definitely helped me to get my first job.

What do you like about your job?

I love the physical aspect, and not being at a computer all day. Working in a lab is a bit like working in a kitchen. Maybe a little more precise. But I think my enjoyment of lab work is similar to my enjoyment of cooking.

I love the variety. The nature of research is that you have to adapt to what you find out. Every month, I learn and develop new methods, and I can never tell you exactly what experiments I’ll be working on next week, because it depends on what I find out this week. It makes it hard to be bored!

Scientists tend to be nice, open-minded and international people. It’s also a very easy job to do all over the world – there aren’t any country-specific qualifications the way there are in fields such as Law.

What is the first advice you would give a student wanting to follow in this direction?

It can be hard to know what you want to do when you’re 16. Just pick subjects you like, stay open to new ideas, and see what you continue to like as you keep studying.

For an 18yr old, who is allowed to work and is taken more seriously, I think doing internships and research projects is super helpful. Your university can help you organise this and might even have funding for you.