Question: did everyone support you on being a scientist ?

Tori Blakeman answered on 14 Mar 2019:

My parents always thought I’d end up in fashion journalism – a career that would fulfill my love of Teen Vogue magazine and enjoyment of reading and writing that I had had from a young age. I loved my dancing and drama and gymnastic sports, and I was definitely fashion conscious – I was perceived as a “girly” girl by many. And with participation in school musicals, I felt that my teachers also thought I’d head down the drama route. However, I still enjoyed my science. I found it interesting to understand the world; getting answers to curious questions that the arts couldn’t give me. I remember when it came to picking GCSEs and A-Levels, I had a lot of encouragement from my English, Drama, Music and Media teachers to take those subjects, perhaps due to my extra-curricular participation in these subjects, or my enthusiasm and aptitude. Despite the sway of my teachers, I was always encouraged by my parents to study the subjects that I enjoyed, and those subjects that I could envisage a good career in. And I definitely had some self-confidence just within me to pursue the subjects I was interested in, no matter what my friends around me were doing.
Despite my personal confidence, when I began to question science as a possible career option, I can’t help but think that the narrative I’d set myself of being artsy, and the subsequent expectation from teachers and others, had a profound impact on my inability to see myself as a “science person.” I was at a school where only those perceived to “geeky” did science, and I wasn’t entirely sure if that felt like me. I was clever, but I certainly wasn’t the cleverest – I missed out on the “gifted and talented” groups, full of the individuals who were encouraged to go to Oxford and Cambridge. And, aged 14, science just wasn’t seen as a “cool” thing to be involved in. But, to be honest, neither was drama, and it just wasn’t really a cool thing to be enthusiastic about any subject at my school, really.
When it came to the age of pondering the concept of university, my Mum suggested looking at a university website to see a list of all the courses they offered – I chose Cambridge. I was doing my GCSEs at the time; my GCSE options were drama, media and triple science, so at this point I had my options pretty open as to what A-Levels, and therefore university, courses I could study. I had literally no idea what I wanted to do. I loved science and I loved the arts, and I remember having a lot of debate over this around this age.
I sat on the sofa of my living room on a laptop, my Dad pretty shocked (in a good way) that I was choosing to spend my evening, aged 15, trawling through the Cambridge University website. I guess I had high expectations of myself from a young age. This is where I discovered the course ‘Natural Sciences’ – appealing to me as I enjoyed lots of types of sciences – and in this course you got to study a bit of Chemistry, a bit of Biology and a bit of Physics, although at the time I did feel uneasy at the thought of university-level physics. I kept exploring and came across Biomedical Sciences, which seemed ideal for me considering my love of the human body and my squeamish-at-blood personality that couldn’t stand the thought of being a doctor or nurse (I was completely put off from the medical profession after fainting after watching my dad giving blood when I was about 8).
During my A-Levels, I ended up studying maths, chemistry, biology and psychology. Having an aptitude in psychology and knowing I also enjoyed biology, I remember my psychology teacher suggesting the idea of a neuroscience course to me – the study of the human brain. After her suggestion, I started exploring the option of neuroscience as well as the biomedical science course option, and arranged university open days to universities which did both courses. Then I went to the University of Manchester open day and just loved it and met loads of scientists who were like me so that’s why I ended up studying it!

Feel free to share this story with your classmates as I appreciate its a long one! Hope it helps 🙂