Quote

I wanted to be a scientist. My undergraduate degree is in biology, and I really did think I might go off and be some kind of a lady Darwin someplace. It turned out that I'm really awful at science and that I have no gift for actually doing science myself. But I'm very interested in others who practice science and in the stories of science.

I was very much into science when I was young - I wanted to be a marine biologist, then I wanted to be a doctor, and then something else, I was always changing.

I always wanted to be a scientist, I always thought I'd be a scientist, that was the narrative I was carrying around. I worked in a neuroscience lab as an undergraduate and then after, almost five years in total, but I realized I just wasn't good at science. I didn't have the discipline for it.

I had been interested in science from when I was very young, but after a disastrous summer lab experience in which every experiment I tried failed, I decided on graduating from college that I was not cut out to be a scientist.

My interest in science had many roots. Some came from my mother as she finished her B.A. degree studies in college while I was in my early teens.

I wanted to be a police detective. In my work, particularly in documentaries, I am obsessed with finding things out, seeking ever-new facts and perspectives - each project can involve years of research.

I grew up obsessed with science fiction, and when I was really young, I wanted to be a scientist.

At school I briefly wanted to be a palaeontologist, but I was no good at chemistry and physics.

At the time I finished high school, I was determined to study biology, deeply convinced to eventually be a researcher.

When it came to choice of subjects, science was obvious - since I was uninterested in anything else - but a decision that caused consternation in some eyes was my demand to take biology for A-level.