• Question: Why did you choose a career in researching and how do you think it will shape?

    Asked by joe1402 to Raquel, Nayeli, Patrick, Sam on 22 Sep 2017. This question was also asked by liv100200300, rheacrisel, younglucy07, chakotayXD.
    • Photo: Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez

      Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez answered on 22 Sep 2017:


      To be honest Joe, it was a mix of things. First, I found a topic that I love and I was very interested in. Then I am a very curious person, so I’m always trying to find answers. But I think that luck also played a part when I finished my PhD I was happy to continue in academia, but I was open to other possibilities as well, I also considered working for different charities or even UNICEF, but at the end I was lucky enough to get an interview at Brookes almost at the same time that my husband got an interview for a different job, but funny enough our offices would be a few hundred meters away from each other, so when we both got the jobs, that was amazing!! I have always considered both my career but also my personal life, I think that is very important to have a good balance.

    • Photo: Sam Parsons

      Sam Parsons answered on 23 Sep 2017:


      Definitely a mix of things yeah. I was interested in a career in mental health from my undergraduate degree. Originally I wanted to go down the clinical psychology route, but eventually I realised that wouldn’t be the best fit for me. Mostly it was because I really enjoyed the research projects that I had been part of and liked the idea of pursuing a research career. I was lucky enough to get my current DPhil position looking at mental health in relation to cognitive biases, which manages to combine all of my core interests really well. In terms of how I think it will take shape, I honestly don’t know. I’d like to have a long career in academia. But, given the small fraction of PhDs that ‘make it’ to professor level, all of us in academia do need to have some kind of a back up, or at least an acknowledgement that it might not necessarily be forever. I hope that answers your question to some level. 🙂

    • Photo: Raquel Pinacho

      Raquel Pinacho answered on 26 Sep 2017:


      Hi Joe, it was a mix of things for me too. Maybe it was my parent’s doing when they bought me that little microscope I used to play with to see onion skins… Who knows! But when I was 16 I started looking into universities to see what the offer was in Spain and there was one that had a lot of lab work and practicals and that sounded very exciting so I chose that one! Once there, it was a very exciting environment with lots of research going on and lots of very cool researchers. I think that inspired me a lot. I spent a couple of summers as an intern in a lab, I realised I was very interested in the neurobiology of the brain, and I guess that’s how it all started! I wanted to know more about the brain so I took a master in Neuroscience for which I did a research project too, then my PhD and now I am a postdoctoral fellow. I don’t know what will the future bring, but hopefully I’ll keep on investigating the brain!

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