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Why I Do Science, Part II

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00:00:05.11 It's because when I was a kid, there was this TV show
00:00:09.24 of a Spanish guy who traveled all around the world
00:00:15.05 looking for mysterious animals and strange species and so on
00:00:20.02 and all my life, I said, oh that's what I want to do with my life.
00:00:25.29 Yeah.
00:00:27.07 And then I realized that he was not a scientist.
00:00:32.17 I can't deny that my father is a physicist
00:00:37.13 so that was a big influence always, to you know, we lean towards mathematics
00:00:43.12 and physics.
00:00:44.10 The first person that actually got me into science,
00:00:46.25 they were my seventh grade teacher.
00:00:49.11 And she was doing her PhD at the time
00:00:52.16 but also teaching and so she taught genetics and it was an amazing experience.
00:00:58.24 I didn't know what science was,
00:01:00.21 or how to view science and she made it fun.
00:01:04.14 And then I put my first microscope in focus, this is really lame,
00:01:08.29 but it's really what happened, I put my first microscope in focus,
00:01:12.03 and was absolutely amazing
00:01:14.11 and it's pretty much still when I manage to get a microscope in focus,
00:01:17.19 I enjoy it.
00:01:19.08 And then when I was in high school I accidentally went to a class
00:01:22.09 where you have two afternoons, you can do science in wherever you want to go.
00:01:27.11 So, then I went there and I started to first, playing with the pipettes and so on,
00:01:31.15 and then I was like, huh, it's fun.
00:01:33.04 And then when it was time to apply to college, I knew that I was going to study physics,
00:01:39.04 like, it had to be physics, and, you know, that was a given.
00:01:42.15 And when I got there, I discovered, it just keep going deeper and deeper,
00:01:48.00 into both physics and math,
00:01:49.26 and it was fun, and you know, ever since then I've sort of been lost in science.
00:01:55.00 So, we were just introduced with genetics and the DNA model
00:01:59.05 from Watson and Crick, so basically these are chemicals
00:02:02.03 and how they basically led to such an evolution
00:02:06.11 of such a complex organisms like humans.
00:02:08.05 So that was very interesting.
00:02:09.14 I was interested in biology since I was a child
00:02:12.27 but just doing biology in the class was fun,
00:02:16.02 looking at the world around was nice.
00:02:19.12 Keeping doing it in school, in high school, in the university,
00:02:24.27 I think I just didn't want to stop.
00:02:28.29 When I was a kid, I always, I liked to play in our courtyard,
00:02:36.01 mixing and mashing flower petals and leaves
00:02:41.00 and making all those colored liquids,
00:02:44.01 and I was like, always, fantasize that I was a scientist
00:02:48.02 discovering drugs from plants and all those stuff.
00:02:52.05 Especially biophysics and biology, you know, I find it's a beautiful subject
00:02:57.12 and you know, often you find things that really blow your mind
00:03:00.03 and I think that's a very lucky find.
00:03:03.13 My junior year I actually met a professor and I randomly picked the course,
00:03:08.22 because I didn't know what it was about, and it was a cytoskeleton course,
00:03:11.20 and without taking cell biology, I entered this course,
00:03:15.17 by mistake, and so, and then I fell in love with actin.
00:03:21.18 It's not, I'm doing science because I want to change the world,
00:03:26.19 I want to discover, no, no, no, it's about having fun.
00:03:29.07 I have fun, it's nice,
00:03:33.08 so why should I stop and try to get a job that I would find boring.
00:03:37.24 I would say that my lab is my home
00:03:41.27 and that also my colleagues and my partners are my family.
00:03:46.04 I love being in the lab. I mean, lab, lab is my home,
00:03:51.17 and my colleagues are my family.
00:03:53.08 We are more friends than colleagues.
00:03:55.28 Just how amazing it is to know and realize
00:03:59.00 that everybody thinks very differently about a certain problem.
00:04:01.24 I think that's what keeps my going and I love talking to people about,
00:04:05.14 just seeing what takes them and how they are thinking about a problem.
00:04:09.18 I found the same enthusiasm
00:04:12.08 and things I love about people in science here, in Argentina, or in any other country,
00:04:18.06 I think that is something we all have in common,
00:04:21.27 the passion we have.
00:04:24.03 I think what I like in science is that we can do really different things.
00:04:32.29 I mean, I'm not only studying or reading papers,
00:04:36.21 we do that, but we are doing constructing,
00:04:40.03 building the tools that we will use after,
00:04:42.19 play a bit with, especially in our science, play a bit with a bit of chemistry,
00:04:47.27 a bit of physics, so the fact that it's really broad.
00:04:52.09 And science is field where it's like new every day.
00:04:54.28 You read papers, you know, to get, you get to know new stuff, and
00:04:58.20 you apply those things daily in your life, in your lab,
00:05:02.24 and it gives, it keeps you on some kind of edge.
00:05:06.22 Science involves being very energetic, being creative,
00:05:11.11 and always wanting to learn more, so there's nothing that really fully satisfies you,
00:05:17.04 so when you reach an answer,
00:05:18.20 you really want to go for more afterwards.
00:05:20.14 And I really like that feeling, that you're, like, your work is never, never done.
00:05:26.00 I feel extremely pleased about learning, I've always liked to learn,
00:05:31.16 and I feel like being a scientist is a way you can learn all the time.
00:05:40.15 And instead of learning from books, as you do when you're a student,
00:05:44.09 you learn from nature itself.
00:05:46.17 There's always more left to learn.
00:05:49.09 Like, even after you answer a question, that leads to another question,
00:05:52.22 which leads to another question, which leads to another question,
00:05:54.25 so, like, there's never an end, and it's awesome.
00:05:58.06 The fact that you are a bit free to do whatever you want,
00:06:04.27 you're just, you have an idea that is usually not so nice,
00:06:08.28 but you try stuff, see what happened,
00:06:11.00 try the next one, and that's the process,
00:06:17.18 the process is at least as fun as the result that you have at the end.
00:06:21.28 You have to figure out your own question,
00:06:24.06 and then address it in your own way,
00:06:25.13 which is more like fully,
00:06:26.22 so that you feel more responsible for your own questions
00:06:29.10 and then feel like, oh, I really need to know those things
00:06:32.02 because this is my precious.
00:06:33.23 I like freedom in terms of what I do every day,
00:06:37.17 I get to plan it myself and decide and also you have a question,
00:06:42.09 that, you know, that is yours and you can take in any direction that you want.
00:06:47.15 Well, in the beginning of undergrad, I was a theater major,
00:06:51.09 and I was always performing onstage, and I loved to express myself that way.
00:06:55.02 But then, when I took this course, which was on biotechnology,
00:06:58.05 I realized that I can filter my creativity in another way by doing experiments
00:07:02.02 and kind of just uncovering, unraveling different pieces of the puzzle of how the body works.
00:07:07.27 And it's a really creative process.
00:07:10.17 So, to answer the next question, you have to come up with a new experiment,
00:07:15.14 or a new technique.
00:07:19.27 And this is a very good avenue to be very creative and come up with solutions yourself,
00:07:24.02 although it involves a lot of struggle, but it makes you really good at the end of the day.
00:07:28.10 I really enjoy the problem solving thing that science has.
00:07:35.00 So you have a question you are really, really interested in,
00:07:39.00 and that you really want to answer.
00:07:43.00 So, you have to, like, put your brains in there and use your skills,
00:07:47.19 and help from other people inside your lab, or outside your lab,
00:07:51.07 and try to solve that question.
00:07:53.06 I like to do science because I like to be challenged.
00:07:55.24 I, from a very early age, I always asked questions,
00:07:59.23 and I think it's fun, I think not knowing is fun,
00:08:03.18 and then when you find out that, that overarching question,
00:08:07.23 which, sometimes you don't, it's still, you're still learning.
00:08:11.11 Especially if you're doing a, trying to tackle an unanswered question,
00:08:18.05 it's like, you're on the horizon. No one's been there before,
00:08:21.27 supposedly, and you kind of, it sort of feels like you're exploring
00:08:27.12 a space for the first time.
00:08:29.21 I get really easily, basically, and I really like a challenge,
00:08:33.06 and so science was a good way to keep myself interested and constantly frustrated,
00:08:37.17 and that, yeah, I got into it because I wanted to solve problems that other people couldn't
00:08:42.01 and to spend my time doing something that was worthwhile to me.
00:08:46.12 I like doing science because it's the just the joy of getting answers by myself,
00:08:51.12 when I'm struggling with a question.
00:08:53.05 And eventually what we do in science,
00:08:55.24 we're generating knowledge and we can understand better
00:08:59.15 ourselves and the world around us.
00:09:02.03 So, I think it's fascinating.
00:09:04.13 And I really enjoy doing it.

This Talk
Speaker: MBL course participants
Audience:
  • Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
  • Student
  • Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
  • Researcher
  • Educators
Recorded: July 2011
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Talk Overview

Thirteen young scientists tell us why they chose to study science. Fun, friendship, creativity and insatiable curiosity are common themes.

Speaker Bio

MBL course participants

The speakers are graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who participated in summer courses at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. They are from universities throughout the USA and beyond. Velez-Perez, McLean, Quiñones-Laracuente and Roberts were all participants in the Summer Program in Neuroscience, Ethics and Survival (SPINES) at the Marine Biological Laboratory. The… Continue Reading

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