Question: Have you always wanted to do a job to do with science or is this something you thought of after school/college?

Emily Walls answered on 20 Mar 2026:

I knew from about the age of 13/14 that I was really interested in space but I was not sure how to turn that interest into a career since I did not know anyone who worked in the space industry but a lot of googling and watching youtube videos actually helped me understand how I could pursue a career in research and it stuck with me since then. During university I wasn’t sure what kind of job I wanted to do afterwards because I had not found an area of space that really excited me but during a research project as part of my 3rd year, I fell in love with research and the process surrounding that, specifically looking at galaxies and star formation.

Before that, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to be an olympic swimmer at one point but that never really worked out!