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Ros Barber's avatar

I didn’t realise how much we had in common, Ally. Background in cell biology and neuroscience, followed by poetry and other kinds of writing? Fantastic! And both pushed into the freelance writing life by redundancy, too. I love that life is supporting you.

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Mindfork's avatar

Oh wow, that’s incredible! What area of biology / neuroscience did you specialise in? 🤩 so happy to hear I’m not alone on this wild rollercoaster haha. Very happy for both of us kindred spirits 👏🏻

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Ros Barber's avatar

I started off doing a biochemistry degree, then switched to biology. Got a first, and intended to take it further, but failed to get into the highly competitive Cambridge Masters programme I was after, and after a year trying to "make it" as a full time writer aged 21/22, I ended up a programmer. My third year specialisms were actually evolution theory and genetics, but the genetics involved quite a lot of cell manipulation (DNA extraction etc) and I got extremely interested in developmental biology as well as evolutionary psychology. My interest in neuroscience stems from this background, but as all been through reading up on stuff in the intervening years.

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Mindfork's avatar

It’s crazy how similar our backgrounds are! I did behavioural genetics focused on sleep and memory (background in cell biology then masters in neuroscience).

Also briefly went into programming with little luck cause it was the bane of my existence haha.

Happy that you soldiered on with writing though, there’s nothing more satisfying!!

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Michaella Parkes's avatar

What is it about Neuroscientists and writing!? I studied it too! Thank you so much for sharing your truth and optimism with us. I feel supported and excited reading this.

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Mindfork's avatar

Neuroscience gals for the win!!

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