Question: @jamesbell i'm not very good at science. will i ever be able to be a marine biologist?

James Bell answered on 26 Jun 2014:

A common misconception I think is that people think you need to be really good at things like maths to be a scientist. Whilst that’s true for some sciences (like Physics for instance), it’s not always true.

Sometimes I have to do things which I don’t think I can do, statistics for example can be pretty tough but the important thing is to not give up. Don’t think that just because there are some people who are smarter than you, that it means you won’t be able to achieve what you want to. I went to a good school but I was never exceptional in my classes and it was the same at university – I got a good degree in the end but the real reason that I managed to get into my current job was that I tried really hard, particularly with the research I did whilst I was doing my first degree.

If you want to be a marine biologist (and I can’t for the life of me think why anyone wouldn’t want to be one :P) then I’ll suggest the following things:

1) Keep being interested, read books and magazine articles (try Prof. Callum Roberts for a couple of books that are easy for non-specialists to read) and keep learning about the oceans, particularly some of the big challenges and problems facing it in the future (like ocean acidification, over-fishing, deep sea mining and pollution). Don’t specialise at this point, read around different topics and find out what interests you.

2) Work towards a goal – my goal when I was young was always to go to Uni to study marine biology, this influenced how I chose my a-levels and what other things I did in my spare time (like SCUBA diving)

3) Try to find work experience if you can (maybe while you do a-levels in summer hold). You’ll probably have to do this for free, these places are very competitive but try to avoid the really flashy gap year adventures like ‘save the turtles’ (I don’t mean you shouldn’t want turtles to be saved of course, but these things are super expensive, don’t really give you proper experience of being a scientist, and I only know person who got a science career who did one and she would have got into science anyway!). Places to look out for experience include the RSPB (lots of seabirds), SeaSearch, Marine Conservation Society, Marine Mammal observing charities

I hope this helps – I really would urge you to believe in yourself, a little self-belief goes a long way and if you are interested and work hard, you’ve got a great chance! Scientists don’t know it all and you aren’t expected to either