• Question: What inspired you to become a scientist?

    Asked by Fabeeha on 27 Jan 2022.
    • Photo: Valerie Vancollie

      Valerie Vancollie answered on 27 Jan 2022:

      I hadn’t planned to become a scientist until quite late. I have always been very curious and generally questioned how/why things work, but at school I was more oriented towards history and English until my final year before uni, when I took psychology and discovered neuroscience. From then on, I was hooked. But I did attend high school and uni in the States, where you don’t start narrowing down the classes you take as early as you do here. If you want to get into a good uni there, you need to keep taking everything (history, maths, science, English, foreign language…) and even in uni you need to do a certain amount of ‘general education’ courses beyond what you’ve chosen as your main course of study.

    • Photo: Chris Budd

      Chris Budd answered on 27 Jan 2022:

      I was greatly inspired by the Apollo moon landings in 1969 and 1970 (especially Apollo 13 which was saved in deep space). My teachers and my grandfather encouraged me a lot as well.

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