Question: what skills do you need to become a scientist

Hazel Gibson answered on 16 Mar 2018:

I think first of all you need to be curious. I’m not sure if that is a skill or a personality trait, but still. Then you need to be good at observation and good at taking constructive feedback or constructive criticism. Scientists area always testing their ideas to make them better so you need to be able to accept people poking at your ideas and designs and trying to find the holes, as they are only trying to help you. Being good at computer skills is definitely a plus, as well as being quite determined. Some scientists spend their whole lives on one idea, and it’s worth it, but it can be quite hard going. Another useful skill is to be able to be methodical in your work. Experiments have to be able to be repeated, so other scientists can test what you did and see if they got the same results. So you need to be good at noting down everything you are doing in an experiment and why, very methodically.
Finally you have to be good at communicating your work, both to other scientists and other non-scientists. Being able to share what you find is vital – if you make a discovery and can’t tell anyone about it, it’s like the discovery never happened!!