My undergraduate degree was in history, and I wish I had been smart enough to really excel at maths, physics, chemistry or biology because... the voyagers and adventurers and real contributors - that's where they come from.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think I set myself on a course to become a scientist around about the time that Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos' series was on television, and there really was no going back for me at that point, and then I went on to study space science and then get my Ph.D., then go aboard and work in the European Space Agency.
I've had young women come to me and say that before they watched 'Voyager' it didn't really occur to them that they could be successful in a higher position in the field of science; girls going to MIT, girls pursuing astrophysics with a view to a career in NASA.
I'm enormously proud of the fact that Star Trek has really not just sparked an interest, but encouraged, a few generations of people to go into the sciences.
I had studied at Harvard and MIT astronomy and a lot about the heavens and the star system and so forth.
Yes, I was a big math and computer geek, that's true. I was driven by the scholastic side of things. For me, it was all about what I could do with math and computers.
I was never strong at maths, but I eventually got onto a university physics/astronomy course, and that led on to my Ph.D. and eventual employment.
I've always liked all the sciences, like math, physics and biology.
I was always good at math and science and physics.
When I was a college student at Yale, I was studying physics and mathematics and was absolutely intent on becoming a theoretical physicist.
I started out as a physicist; however, I am what I have become. I have evolved, with the help of many colleagues in the international scientific community, into an interdisciplinary scientist.