Question: how do you get into being a scienctist in something exoctic?

Georgia Campbell answered on 17 Jun 2011:

When you finish university the way you apply for things changes a lot. At A-level there are set courses for you to choose from, and when you’re applying to university there are a lot of places offering very similar courses every year. However, when you start applying for PhDs (which I’d strongly reccomend if you want to be a scientist!), every PhD is different. They’re all based on unique and oirignal research, so no 2 PhDs are the same, and the courses offered are different every year.

You’ll find that you apply for a lot of very different things that are in the same sort of topic area – I applied for lots of different PhDs that has a basis in genetic diseases. So chances are you’ll end up working with something you don’t know much about – I’d barely heard of mitochondria until I started in my lab! So to work in something you think is exotic, just apply for lots of different projects in a subject area you think is interesting – hardly anyone has any experience with the exact topic that they do their PhD on!

Hope that helps 🙂