Question: Would you have any advice for the people who struggle in science or sometimes don’t get a specific area in science?

Oliver Gordon answered on 7 Mar 2019:

I didn’t only not like science when I was younger, I was pretty poor at it! So I can speak from experience on this one.
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1) Young people all develop very differently. Some people struggle in school, then when they turn 17 have a sudden spark and then become top of their classes. A good friend of mine nearly failed his GCSEs (not for lack of trying, too!) and then went to Cambridge. Don’t think that your ability now = your ability forever!
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2) The most important thing is that you want to get better at it, and you want to like it. Your good attitude is everything! This leads me into….
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3) Nobody “gets” EVERY part of science! If I learnt anything during my degree, it’s that there’s so much stuff to learn it’s impossible to know it all! My personal tutor at university was one of the world leaders on MRI (and was one of the people who originally invented it). I asked him for some very basic help on what was meant to be a super simple topic. He just said “oh, I don’t have a clue! Go ask xxx instead!” And that’s A-OK! Part of becoming smarter is realising just how much you don’t know – and that’s a good thing! What we all do is very specific – Jordan was saying earlier he tried to use the types of machine learning that I do, and found it really hard. I find it easier, but if you were to ask me to do what he does, I wouldn’t know where to start!