Why chemistry?

At school I liked lots of sciences and I really liked the way chemistry is cross disciplinary, it merges into physics and biology. Also it's so applicable to so many real life situations, from designing new medicines to looking at biodegradable plastics. It gave me a really broad scope for choosing a future career because I didn't know when I started what I wanted to do.

Why stay for a PhD?

Neither of my parents had gone to university, so I knew a PhD existed but I didn't know what it would involve. During my undergraduate degree at Bath I did an industrial placement at a big pharmaceutical company and I met lots of people who'd done PhDs. Through speaking to them I decided it was something I wanted to do. I wanted to get that extra experience and then potentially go into something that required me to have that PhD.

Career choice

Following my PhD I think I'd like to become a patent attorney. So it's using my chemistry PhD and my chemistry knowledge and I still get to see cutting-edge science but I'd be working in an office rather than a laboratory. I'd get to look at other people's inventions and look at science through that.