Which advice would you give to a young scientist wanting to expand their scientific knowledge? And maybe be a scientist

Question: Which advice would you give to a young scientist wanting to expand their scientific knowledge? And maybe be a scientist one day?
- Keywords:
  career,
  education,
  inspiration
Asked by to Nat, Nate, Roberto, Sam, Sarah on 16 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
- Roberto Trotta answered on 16 Jun 2014:
  
  Go where your heart says you should.
  
  If you are thinking about a career in science, chances are that you are already a curious and open-minded person. You need to keep feeding that curiosity, and this will take you a very long way on the path towards becoming a scientist.
  
  Even if you don’t end up being a professional scientist one day (after all, only a small fraction of Astronomy PhD students end up being professional scientists — I think something like 3% or so), studying science will give you enormously useful qualifications for any number of jobs outside the academic world. This is because scientists use something called “the scientific method”, ie a mathematical way of looking at problems and solving questions about the real world, that can be used in many many different ways, from healthcare to finance, from engineering to banking, from protecting the environment to formula 1, from creating new ways of generating carbon-free energy to understanding why people behave the way they do.
  
  So if you want to expand your scientific knowledge, keep asking questions!
- Nate Bastian answered on 16 Jun 2014:
  
  For me, one of the most important moments in my development was when I started reading “popular science” books outside of school. Finding out what are the big open questions today, instead of what we learned 200 years ago, was thrilling. Books like “A brief history of time” or “A brief history of nearly everything” can be more motivating than a semester at school. It also lets you focus on what you’re interested in, biology/evolution, physics/astronomy, palaeontology, animal behaviour, etc.
- Sarah Casewell answered on 16 Jun 2014:
  
  Keep asking questions, and read a lot – find out what sort of things you are interested in. Not all scientists study the same things – find out if you like astronomy, physics, chemistry etc best and then go for it!
- Sam Connolly answered on 16 Jun 2014:
  
  Read! There are loads of great books about Science, and magazines like New Scientist are really good and aimed at people who are interested in Science as opposed to experts. Also, the internet is full of information, so look up anything you think might be interesting. There are some really good documentaries on TV as well, that’s good as good a way to learn new things!
  
  In terms of becoming a scientist, if it’s what you want to do all you really need to do is what you’re interested in! Choose the subjects your interested in when you have a choice, which will lead you into doing things your interested in. I was interested in Physics, which meant when I went to University and did physics I could go into Astronomy, which turned out to be my favourite part of physics, but I could have worked on photonics, which is using lasers, or nanotechnology, which is making things on a microscopic scale, or a lot of other things! Every type of science lets you do a lot of different things – with biology you can be everything from a doctor to a geneticist, and with chemistry anything from making medicines to making new materials. If you stick with what your interested in, it’ll lead you to something you even more interested in, most likely!
- Natasha Stephen answered on 18 Jun 2014:
  
  Always ask any questions you have to anyone that will listen, they might not know the answer themselves but could point you in the right direction to find one!
  
  It would be a good idea to read a lot too. There is often a lot of science published in the main stream media in a really accessible format so it would be good to start following that regularly to keep up with what is going on and also help find your own interests as well! The BBC have a good Science & Nature section as do most of the main newspapers, though these tend to be more opinionated.