• Question: have you ever been bullied for being a scientist

    Asked by anon-214861 to Helen, Farah, Dave, Cheryl, Bastian, Alun on 13 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Alun Owen

      Alun Owen answered on 13 Jun 2019:


      Thankfully not 🙂

    • Photo: Dave Underhill

      Dave Underhill answered on 13 Jun 2019:


      I was bullied at school relentlessly, I was quite bright at primary school and that’s where the bullying started, but when I got to secondary it really took off! I was held down and repeatedly kicked in the head on my first day – that kind of set the tone for my time at secondary school. I didn’t really discover my love for science until later in life, in fact, I had started studying science before I even realised that what I was doing was science!! 🙂 since then I haven’t been bullied – bullying doesn’t really go on in higher education, that I have seen anyway – and if it does it is in a very different way to how it is at school.

    • Photo: Cheryl Williams

      Cheryl Williams answered on 13 Jun 2019:


      I’ve never been bullied for being a scientist, but I was bullied at school for being “a swot”. It really got me down, I never got along with the popular kids. But looking at my life now, and what I have become, compared to some of these kids, I’ve done well with my life and I’m glad I worked hard, rather than slacked off just to be liked by those kids. If anyone is being bullied for any reason, my advice would be to speak to someone you trust if you need to, and don’t change anything about yourself just to feel like you fit in.

    • Photo: Farah Elahi

      Farah Elahi answered on 13 Jun 2019:


      I can give a different perspective here. I went to a very good girls grammar school in Essex, so it was filled with students who wanted to be Lawyers, Doctors, Dentists and Economists – many of them have gone on to have successful careers in these fields. So I was surrounded by students who were extremely smart. In fact I wasn’t the smartest student in the class or year, and because of that I got bullied. Also some people thought I was wasting my time doing a psychology degree because it is not seen as a well respected degree or a traditional science. So I got picked on because of this. However despite this, I’ve never regretted by decision and actually a few of those students who picked on me are now congratulating me on doing my PhD. So don’t listen to the bullies and do what you’re passionate about 🙂

    • Photo: Helen Faulkner

      Helen Faulkner answered on 18 Jun 2019:


      I was bullied in school for being the fat, ginger kid but thankfully that stopped when I stopped reacting to the comments.
      I didn’t have a lot of friends and I have always been a bit of a loner that prefers books and animals to people anyway.

      I don’t remember ever being bullied for being a scientist but in my first job where there was high staff turnover I was completely ignored by my colleagues (as in they wouldn’t talk to me and they’d deliberately talk about parties that I wasn’t invited to in front of me) which might be seen as a form of bullying. Good excuse to get a better job.

      It’s easy to wonder what if I’d never been bullied, what if I had been one of the popular kids …. but often you find that the strongest people in society are the ones who were bullied and the ones who seemed to have everything easy are the ones who struggle as adults.

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