• Question: do you need good grades to become a scientists

    Asked by anon-217556 to Philippe on 14 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Philippe Gambron

      Philippe Gambron answered on 14 Jun 2019:

      It helps but it’s not necessary. I did not have good grades. This makes certain doors more difficult to open but this is not impossible. If you try hard and are resilient, you can make things go the way you would like them to go. The advice I would give you is not to listen to the people who tell you that you are not bright enough because you will come across lots of them. If you are passionate about it, if you try hard, you probably have everything it takes to do what you are aiming at. Good luck!

Comments

  • Photo: Harrison

    Harrison commented on :

    I agree with Philippe. It helps you get into a good university, which in turn makes it easier to land your first science job. But, what is far more important is being persistent and working hard. It is not always the case that the person who “gets it first” is necessarily the one who will ultimately end up with the deepest understanding. Working hard on something and thinking hard about it is what is actually required to make progress. And the more you work at something, the deeper will be your understanding. Our world is full of apparently brilliant people, yet we still haven’t figured out how to avoid conflict, or eliminate poverty, or hatred. That’s because we don’t work hard enough on these things. Most people are reasonably smart, but only a tiny fraction are prepared to put in the amount of hard work that’s needed to master something.