• Question: What was your favourite subject in school? Do you use it in your work and how?

    Asked by ekes532parr65 on 6 Nov 2025.
    • Photo: Lindsay Keith

      Lindsay Keith answered on 6 Nov 2025:

      Hello! I liked biology and english at school, and I ended up working in science communication and science engagement (festivals etc). I now work in a science research institute and my job is to try and get our scientists work out into the news and raise awareness of it. So when they publish a paper in journal describing a discovery (journals are where researchers publish their findings) I have to read it and understand it and try to turn it into language that will be interesting and readable for non-scientists. As an example of this: Here’s a link to an original paper by one of our scientists (very difficult to read if you’re not already trained in science!) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07701-9 and here is the story as the BBC covered it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv2gr3x3xkno. In my career as a science communicator I have also run festivals, produced films and theatre and done stand-up comedy!

    • Photo: Rebecca Randhawa

      Rebecca Randhawa answered on 6 Nov 2025:

      Biology was always a favourite of mine and I definitely use it in my day-to-day work. I help design trials to test new medicines and understanding how medicines work and interact with the human body is very important.

Comments

  • Photo: eleanormerson

    eleanormerson commented on :

    My favourite was history, but my second (joint) favourites were chemistry and physics. There seemed to be more jobs for scientists, so I chose that direction. I can still enjoy history as a hobby – I listen to lots of podcasts. I think it is actually better to have done it this way – if I had tried to have a career in history I would have had to focus on one bit, which sounds boring.

  • Photo: Andrew M

    Andrew M commented on :

    In school my favourite subject was economics, perhaps the most scientific of the social sciences, and certainly the most pyschopathic. It offered a different way to look at the world and, like the sciences I studied, added understanding of the world and a great deal of colour and flavour to it. History was my great love outside school, I just didn’t take to it, the way it was taught in school sadly.