Question: when/how did you discover you passion?

Carolyn McGettigan answered on 21 Mar 2010:

hiya!

here’s an answer i wrote to a very similar question the other day, which i think fits with your question too:

I chose to study science because I didn’t want to study anything else and I liked learning about how things work, especially in human biology. However, I think I only really decided that I wanted to work as a scientist, and that I might be alright at it, when I took a Psychology module at university. I was really inspired by lecture courses on the psychology of hearing and language, and suddenly found I had lots of ideas about these subjects, which i hadn’t really experienced in my ‘basic science’ lectures in cell biology and chemistry. looking back, i think my interest in sound, and specifically speech, goes back to when I was at school and really enjoyed subjects like music and modern languages. at the time, i didn’t realise that these subjects were of interest to scientists! i guess all my interests really come together in what i do now.

i love being a scientist for loads of different reasons, but i think the most important is that i get to design and run my own experiments to find out about things that genuinely fascinate me, and someone pays me to do it!