What Got You Interested in Science?

Yesterday’s book club raised the question of what first inspires young people to get interested in science. Many Cosmic Variance readers aren’t scientists at all, but a lot of you are. So — what first set you down this road? For purposes of this highly non-scientific investigation, let’s define “scientist” fairly broadly, as someone who has either received a bachelor’s degree in some scientific field, or is currently on the road to doing so (e.g. someone currently in high school or college). Even if you’re not currently a full-time scientist, we’ll count you if you got the degree.

Here’s a poll based on my quick guesses as to what might be the leading causes of nudging people into science.

What first inspired you to study science?
Parent, relative, or friend.
Role model outside friends and family.
Teacher or a particular class.
Science fair, mathletics, or other scholastic activity.
Personal hobby or tinkering.
Science books (non-fiction).
Science fiction or fantasy literature.
Movies, TV, radio.
The internet (for you youngsters).
Other
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

I’d be very interested to hear if I’m leaving out some hugely influential category. And you can vote for more than one thing, if you think you were influenced by multiple sources. Among the many flaws of this kind of poll is that you might not actually remember what first inspired you — maybe it was hearing something on the radio, which made you go check out a book, but you remember the book and not the radio show. So be it; just try your best to be honest.

97 Comments

97 thoughts on “What Got You Interested in Science?”

  1. I echo what Loki and Kevin said. I’m interested in science because of an insatiable curiosity/natural wonder more than anything else. I just want to know about everything!

  2. Which from the following has more contribution in motivating people to do science
    1-The scientific research is interesting
    or
    2-Science is an honest and logical way to discover facts.

  3. Math –> math –> first physics course in college. Somehow I missed the dinosaurs
    and astronomy (which was always presented as constellations — see SouthPark episode on the Planet Arium for a perfect description of my reaction to much of the astronomy I encountered before I hit cosmology in grad school). In fact, most of the science I found in school or the home chem kits or astron charts was boring and presented at far too simple a level to be at all interesting. But the first real physics course I took completely changed my view of science (it probably helped that I got into the honors lab and so avoided the usual mind-numbing freshman labs). And in an admission that will forever mark me as a hopeless geek, I got hooked on the problem sets (starting with that first phys. course and including/esp Jackson).

  4. An appropriately timed poll…

    My high school physics teacher Dr. Frank Roberts passed away quietly at Bryn Mawr Hospital yesterday morning at the age of 80.

    Frank had a doctorate in Geology from Bryn Mawr College and could have secured a job paying well into six figures with some oil company.

    Instead, he invested his life in his students. He was intelligent, well informed, dedicated to science…just an incredible person. I looked forward to his classes every day…they were a high-point in my early education. We studied Astronomy in his back-yard, ground mirrors for Newtonian Reflectors, went to the big scientific equipment outlets- and kept abrest of the history of science in the making. I remember the day he announced that Albert Einstein had passed away…back in 1955. We were all deeply saddened-

    as we all were saddened yesterday that our mentor and friend had passed on.

    He wasn’t perfect. I remember years ago, he approached me and appologized for his poor teaching performance in mathematics. He was so bright he skipped steps all over the place and we had to fight to keep up with him. I told him I was awestruck by his understanding of math…it was his challenge to us to study harder.

    I also had a wonderful chance to thank this person- while he was still alive- for the profound influence he had on my life….

  5. This may just be a weird quirk for me, but the essence of it was not sleeping as a child. My parents would take me outside at night to see if it’d get me more likely to fall asleep, but I’d just start asking questions once outside. Starting down that route, by 4 they were taking me to amateur astronomy meetings in the area, and that all kept snowballing til now, where I’m finishing a master’s in physics and applying to schools for a PhD program that has an extrasolar planets group.

  6. A series of increasingly important influences. First, parents: father worked for Chrysler as a subcontractor to NASA, mother worked for NASA in an office next to that of von Braun. Second, “museum school” at the Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History, a science-oriented preschool. (I later took other classes there.) A few years ago, I noticed that Jim Diffly is still there. Third, science books (as mentioned on your poll). Fourth, a subcategory of the third, Isaac Asimov. I later also read stuff by Sagan, Clarke, Gamow etc, but it was Asimov who really got me hooked. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a science-fiction convention in Manhattan back in 1983. Although I’ve met several famous people, I’m not an autograph hound, but I do have his autograph on the back of my name tag. I also credit Asimov with keeping me from becoming a redneck.

  7. My faith, Star Trek, and a children’s book on science I got from the library, and crystal structures. Strange combination

  8. I decided in first grade that I wanted to be a scientist, although I don’t remember exactly why. The one “experiment” that I do remember was putting some bean plants in the window, and noting that over the course of a day they leaned towards the sun.

    In 5th, 7th, and 8th grade I had a science teacher who recognized and encouraged my interest in science. He encouraged my mother to get me Discover magazine, which I always read cover to cover.

    In college I started out as a biology major, but ended up in physics because I loved the way physical phenomena can be so well described by math.

  9. John Peacock: Spooky how exactly your first paragraph described me! But I never liked science fiction…

  10. For me Science Fiction (Star Trek mainly) and McGyver did the trick 😉

    By the way Sean, according to your broad definition that “someone currently in high school” can be considered a scientist, then even some of my cheerleader high school classmates, who back then (~15 years ago and probably still now) could hardly count to ten, are on the same footing with you and me, who worked really hard on our way through the PhD and postdocs????

    I guess you need at least a bachelor to be considered a scientist. Therefore, you might want to change your definition…

    Cheers,
    nobody

  11. In a conversation, someone asked me a question, to which I replied “who the hell is Albert Einstein?”
    That set me on the road to find out who AE was, and every subject he had connections to, thus the miriad of connecting “scientific” authors and subjects.

  12. In chronological order: dinosaurs, Tom Swift Jr. books (kids sci-fi), airplanes, a chemistry set (for Christmas), “The Microbe Hunters” (HS biology required reading).

    Thanks Mom!

  13. It’s probably going to make me sound weird (no change there), but I definitely didn’t go into science because I found it particularly easy. Nor was I inspired by science fiction or the lunar landings. For most of the time at school my best subject – and the one I enjoyed most – was Latin.

    Relatively late in my school career, when I was about 16, one particular teacher got me interested in science, not in mathematics or physics but in chemistry. My chemistry teacher had a PhD in organic chemistry and he delighted in inventing ways of synthesizing complex molecules from simple ones. The homework problems he set on this type of thing were very challenging, amusing and very rewarding to get right in the same way as codebreaking and cryptic crosswords, two other longstanding interests of mine. That was the reason I switched from doing languages as a speciality to doing science, the eventual specialisation in astrophysics didn’t come until much later.

    I don’t regret it at all, except that I’ve now pretty much forgotten all the Latin I learned. It’s my plan to take that up again when I’ve retired (or when the UK government has shut down science entirely and I’ve been thrown out of work…).

  14. Christmas presents: A microscope (to look at leaves, insects, blood, skin, etc.), a chemistry set (back in the late 1950’s before the “dangerous” things had been taken out), a telescope (to look at the moon, planets, nearby mountains and buildings). And regular trips to the library for what ever I wanted to read. I was encouraged to be curious.

    Also enjoyed helping my mother in the garden (and experimented on the effect of different amounts of fertilizers). Loved organic chemistry because of the professor. Combined organic chemistry with interest in plants to study substances like terpenes and alkaloids in grad school.

    Am now (small college) chemistry professor.

  15. I didn’t answer the poll (I’m a lawyer, not a scientist).

    I got interested in science, well – I’m naturally interested in just about everything, so I don’t really know how I got interested in science specifically. Astronomy and cosmology were the first sciences I was really interested in, I know that much. And that would have come from books my parents got me.

    To answer the opposite of the question – why I ended up not going into science . . . well, I had a truly awful chemistry teacher in high school who told us that her class was what college science would be like. So that put me off taking more than a few college science classes until it was too late. I tried to minor in physics, but I would have needed to stay an extra year in college to take all of the required math. (I hadn’t touched calculus because of its high school reputation – I didn’t plan on taking any subject where half of the students would fail if not for the curve unless I had to).

    Well, that and my LSAT score. That was a good reason to stay in law.

  16. On the eve of a long road trip, when I was in 9th grade in 1969, I bought a copy of Isaac Asimov’s Adding a Dimension, a collection of his F&SF magazine articles. I was floored! Not only could I understand the concepts, I really enjoyed learning about them! I found more of Asimov’s essay books in stores and libraries, and found more popular science books, and deepened my awe of nature. Eventually, I got a degree in chemistry, but I also took courses in every science that I could, required or not, like astronomy, biology, and geology. I still keep an eye on general science with Science News and lots of websites and blogs.

  17. @nobody (#63) – I think there’s a distinction between “scientist” and “professional scientist”, and it would go by employment more than education. Perhaps I’m a nerd, but I published my first single-authored paper at the age of 16 (thankfully, there wasn’t anyone around to tell me I couldn’t!). So yes, someone in high school (indeed anyone) can be a scientist. For me (a professional scientist now), being a scientist is a way of looking at and investigating the world, not a degree or a paycheck.

  18. I certainly cannot pin down any one thing for myself. I do recall that in Kindegarten, the words “scientist” and “science” were thrown around with great admiration as if this was the thing to be and the thing to do.

  19. National Geographic. I remember reading about dinosaurs when I was very young, then branching out into the wildlife articles. I always said that I wanted to be a photographer for the magazine, but my Dad told me that was like wanting to be an actress. I fooled him, now I say I want to be a science writer (I’m just out of college). but it is still the same desire.

  20. For me, it was Dinosaurs, then on to Star Trek, then to this bloody Ph.D. program that surely will end next year (please? people really do finish right?).

    For my daughter, who is almost 2, she fell in love with dinosaurs all on her own. We get her lots of books from the library, and she has loved all the ones with dinosaurs in them. At breakfast one day, she pointed to my wife and said “Mommy is a triceratops! 3 horns!” (It must have been a bad hair morning). I hope she keeps up the interest as she grows, but we’ll see. I am just shocked (and excited) that at such a young age, she shows interest in science!

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