The careers guidance office was absolutely fantastic and extremely helpful. They interviewed me (more of a chat really) and we discussed what it was that I wanted to do – it wasn’t really a discussion about jobs, just what I liked to do and what things interested me and science came top of the list. They quickly identified a third-level qualification I could try for and they even arranged an interview with the polytechnic. It was all plain sailing after that.
As regards astronomy, even though it’s not a “job”, the prime motivator for me was a colleague, Eamonn Ansbro, who was doing some scientific work for a PhD. After chatting with him extensively, I decided that I was going to follow that path as best I could. And sure enough, a few years later I’m providing quality data to the Minor Planet Centre and sending in data to the Jet Propulsion Lab in support of the Dawn Mission.