• Question: how did you get into your work and what did you take?

    Asked by chloe on 10 Jan 2020. This question was also asked by aimee17, aid17.
    • Photo: Fiona Macfarlane

      Fiona Macfarlane answered on 10 Jan 2020:

      I started doing a Biochemistry degree at university, but didn’t really like it as there were too many labs. I also could choose optional classes, and I took maths as one of these, which I loved. I then switched to a degree in Mathematical Biology, so I could keep learning maths and a little bit of biology. After I finished university I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but one of my lecturers suggested doing a PhD with him. Unfortunately, he was moving university so I did to. I really enjoyed doing my PhD and now I am finished I still work in the same research group.

      At school I took Maths, English, Music, Biology and Chemistry for higher (similar to A level), for standard grade (similar to GCSE) I took Maths, English, Biology, Chemistry, Music, Graphic Design, Geography and German.

    • Photo: Andrew Harrison

      Andrew Harrison answered on 11 Jan 2020:

      A series of accidents, mistakes and wrong turns. I did Pure Maths at Warwick, I never got (or liked stats) and failed the course on Mathematical Programming (i.e. optimisation). I always wanted to do research and liked computer programming. I was sponsored on my degree by the MoD and worked at their research establishment in Malvern during the summers. I didn’t do great on my degree and ended up working at the MoD in Malvern, as I hadn’t done well enough to go on to do a PhD.
      I didn’t give up hope of doing a PhD. I worked in a large research team doing a lot of work on Bayesian modelling and neural networks (this was 30 years ago) with me in the corner doing optimisaiton. My boss had a research contract with UEA in Norwich – the opposite side of England to Malvern! The team at UEA specialised in graph theory, mathematical programming and computation complexity. I did a part time Masters (by research) at UEA, which I thoroughly enjoyed and then started a part-time PhD. All the time my job allowed me to do research in optimisation (mathematical programming) as my day job. After 10 years with the MoD, I moved on and struggled to finish the PhD, stopped working on it then several years later came back to it and finished it: doing a PhD is hard, doing it part-time is even harder.
      Over the years optimisation has always been part of every job I’ve had. I’ve always been in industry and have moved from research roles to consultancy roles. Over the last few years, I’ve been doing more and more machine learning, and I’m about to start a new role that will take me back to research.
      Your career will have made twists and turns, moments of serendipity and some dead ends. It only looks planned and successful when you look back. I hope you find an exciting career that lets you use maths.

      I took Maths, English Language, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, German and Technical Drawing at O level (the equivalent of GCSE) and Maths with Mechanics, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry at A level.

Comments