Question: My favourite subject in school is also maths. Was there any point in yiour life when you wanted to be a mathmatician and not a scientist?

Clare Devery answered on 13 Mar 2015:

Hi CleoW! Good question! I did want to study maths at university when I was at school. I found maths the easiest subject and the one I was best at. When it came to choosing university degrees though, I wasn’t entirely sure what type of job I would end up with from a maths degree. I had only ever heard of mathematicians working in finance/ banks or as researchers. I didn’t fancy any of those jobs so I choose science. I work in physics now and use maths regularly to solve problems. It’s really surprising how much maths is involved actually!

The thing about maths is that it becomes useful in so many fields. The results of most scientific experiments are analysed using statistics, which is a mathematical concept. I have friends that studied it at uni. One of them is now working as a medical statistician for a big company in London. Her job is to use maths to try and better the way the healthcare system works. I had no idea such jobs even existed!

So I think I would have enjoyed studying maths immensely, and there are more diverse jobs out there than I knew about when I was in school, but am happy I became a physicist overall. I still use maths all the time, its just more applied maths than pure maths!