I have to laugh: as a child, my hours would roll into days
as I often spent the soggy British summertime building my latest mansions with
the world famous building blocks that go by the name of Lego. Admittedly, I don’t
need much of an excuse to assist nieces and nephews in their attempts to build
the tallest tower or the 3 storey town house these days, but yesterday I found myself
walking into the Lego store in Sheffield to enquire about the latest female
scientist character. Complete with conical flasks, the female chemist is a much
welcome, slightly overdue addition to the Lego family. And I wonder what I
would look like as a Lego character. What would you look like?
Creating a character or an avatar gives us the freedom to
explore how we would like to appear to other people in an ideal world, and what
our perfect career would be (just so we can select the correct accompanying
tool to go with our avatar, of course). Once
we have the ideal, perfect vision of ourselves firmly in our own mind, we can
start taking steps to make that a living reality. But let’s go one further and
consider what we want to be remembered for; discovering life changing cancer
therapies; making an impact towards low carbon technology; reducing the need
for animals in science research; developing cheaper vaccines for low income
economies; etc etc.
I am currently in the process of making a huge, potentially
life-changing decision that has reignited a dwindling spark in me about what
the future of science looks like for me. A career in science will always evolve
to whatever you want it to look like, whether it be teaching the next
generation of genius’s, researching your own questions about the wonders of the
world or moving out of the lab and into a slightly different territory where
lab coats and safety specs are a thing of the past. But the science, and the
research and the curiosity remains. For me, the future career I want in science
has already started to mould itself into my ideal job, and I’m in control of
the next chapter of my life.
I can’t ignore the invaluable lessons I learned in the lab
along the way: the hours spent on the spectrophotometer and deciphering my
latest set of kinetic data; the care and attention to detail whilst purifying
proteins through chromatography and other techniques; tending to my human cells
in culture that I cared for for over 3 years. All of these experiences have enabled
me to work out where my path is taking me next. A future in STEM is definitely
for me. I always want to play for the curious team, the team that asks
questions about the world, the team that asks ‘why’ and the team that pulls
together to find answers to make our world a better place. Imagine this Earth
without the mathematicians working alongside the geologists working alongside
the engineers to solve erosion and drought that the tempest brings. Imagine our
Earth when all bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics we so heavily rely
on now. I love playing for the STEM team. The question is, is a future in STEM
for you?
