Question: is writing reports something you have always wanted to do or did you have something else in mind as a child?

Aaron Boardley answered on 10 Nov 2015:

I had lots of different ideas about what I wanted to do as a child. One of my earliest answers to the question ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ was ‘an author’ – I loved stories!

So, I always enjoyed writing. Then as I got older I loved maths and science, too, and got good at these. At school they seemed like very separate subjects, with English and maths having very little to do with each other, and I wasn’t sure what direction to head in, as I felt I had to choose one or the other.

It was only really once I got to uni, where I was studying physics that I realised I could combine the two, and write about science and engineering.

Even full time scientists who don’t have a job like mine still have to communicate their work and write about it, so writing is a good skill for all scientists to develop. However, it’s nice to know that there are some extra-creative ways to share science, too.