Big Think

Topic: Becoming a Scientist

Dr. Yvonne Will: I never thought about being a scientist.  I really didn’t.  And it, you know, I'm one of these people that probably can learn quickly and understand concepts and they're good at everything but nothing.  So you know, they have all A's one year and then they have all C's if the teacher you know, wasn’t appropriate.  But they don't really-- I never had those you know, absolute passion for mathematics or art.  You know, I was, you know, again it was dependent pretty much on the subject.  And it really wasn’t till the end of what we call the gymnasium kind of an equivalent to high school here, that I had to really make some decisions of what I wanted to do, you know.  And it was almost-- it was difficult because I liked everything but you know, I wasn’t overly good about a particular task.  And I was sitting next to my friend and I said what are you doing?  And you know, she- she at that age was already thinking about marriage and children, a foreign concept to me.  But you know, because of that, probably she knew exactly what she was going to do.  And she said, well I'm going to go to private school and I'm going to be a state licensed technician for biology.  And I said well, I'm going with you.

Recorded on: 06/25/2008