How can I talk to an Academic or Lecturer?

[gregy521]

I'm really interested in the subject and being a Higher education lecturer and academic sounds really good to me. But I don't know where I can talk to somebody in the career. Could somebody point me in the right direction, or if you're already an academic, be open to 15 or so questions about it?

Note: I can't actually go out to meet anybody or phone them.

 

[Intraverno]

Being an academic is not a subject. That's almost as general as saying that you want to have a job when you grow up. What kind of subjects do you like? How much education do you have right now? What are your strengths and weaknesses in, well, everything?

 

[gregy521]

An academic in physics, I'm interested in high energy particle physics and theoretical physics and I'm good at Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer science and Maths. Weak at History and slightly bad at English, Going into college in september (UK).

 

[Intraverno]

Ok, that definitely helps. I know this probably isn't what you want to hear but physics at higher levels is very much a totally different beast from the physics you'll see in high school, so make sure that you keep your options open as you're just not in a position to know for sure if you really want to be in physics long term. That said, I'm not in the UK nor am I out of high school, so I unfortunately can't help much with contacts, but I'm sure that if you talk to your teachers they could maybe put you in contact with some. There are also many academics in physics on the forums, so if you see one in this thread or another I'm sure many of them will be happy to answer some questions if you pm them (go to your profile and start a conversation with them to pm them).

Also, ZapperZ has a thread called "So you want to be a Physicist", found here: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/so-you-want-to-be-a-physicist.240792/
ZapperZ is from the United States and as such the thread is geared towards U.S. students, but I'm sure it will be of some help to read it. I don't know much about the education system in the UK, but even if the details are wrong I bet the general outline of your education will be of interest to you.