By Megan
Link: https://www.untanglingscience.com/episode-6-interview-with-dalia-science
Link to transcript: not available and there might not be one as the episode wasn’t scripted but if someone does write a transcript you will find a link to it here https://www.untanglingscience.com/blog
The episode can also be found on podcast sites including Spotify, Listen Notes, Buzzsprout and Player FM.
Episode 6 of Untangling Science is different from the others but just as good. The other episodes focus on a scientific topic, including photosynthesis, the sun and the periodic table. Episode 6 is an interview with a PhD student at Oxford University called Dalia Gala who is known as Dalia Science on social media.
Darragh Ennis who writes and presents the other episodes was the interviewer and he asked Ms Gala lots of questions about being a PhD student at Oxford, what it was like for her growing up with an interest in science, her education before her PhD and what she is interested in doing in the future.
The questions are really good questions and the answers are very interesting. Ms Gala is really interesting to listen to and very enthusiastic about her subject. It is very easy to understand everything she says – she explains everything very clearly so it is easy to understand but she never talks down to us or makes it sound too difficult. She makes it sound like very hard work but also a lot of fun. She is very enthusiastic too so it is very easy to get caught up in that and to want to hear every word she says.
The interview is very honest and reassuring. It is honest because Ms Gala doesn’t pretend everything is wonderful – she is very honest about all the difficult things about working in science and the fact that not everything was easy for her all the time. I think it is very important to know things like that because a lot of people think that if things aren’t easy, that means there’s something wrong with them or they aren’t clever enough and that isn’t true.
It is reassuring because it is helpful to know that even people who do PhDs at Oxford don’t find everything easy all the time and if it’s okay for Ms Gala to find things difficult sometimes, it is okay for everyone else too. It was also really reassuring to know that Ms Gala doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do next. I worry sometimes because I don’t know exactly what I want to do. I am only eleven so I have lots of time but I still feel like I should be a lot more certain about what I want to do. I want to do cardiology research but I also want to be a doctor and meet patients and help them look after their hearts. But maybe I don’t need to decide yet.
It is also interesting that science students sometimes work in other countries. I love languages and I am learning mine early so I can focus on science but a lot of people say it is silly to learn languages if I want to be a scientist or a doctor. But it is not silly if I might be studying in a country where they speak a different language and it is also not silly because it is something I love. In the interview Ms Gala says what job she would like if she was not a scientist. It is not a scientific job and it is something I enjoy too. It was lovely to hear that and to know I have something in common with Ms Gala but I think another thing which is really important is that if you are a scientist, that does not mean everything you do has to be related to science. It is okay to enjoy completely different things like music or languages or anything else in the whole world. A scientist can also be a linguist or a singer if they want to be. You don’t have to be just one thing.
This episode is really interesting and
fun and I learned so much from it about science and PhDs and life.
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