What did you want to be when you were growing up?

235 answers answered between 1930 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A

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The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.

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Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 7 Arts and letters 186 Politics and public life 16 Business and finance 10 Technology 3 Sport 12

Read by age Any age Before thirty 3 In their thirties 33 In their forties 36 In their fifties 50 In their sixties 43 Seventy and beyond 25

James Dyson British inventor and businessman

I had no idea whatsoever, and nor did anyone else. I thought I’d go to art school and see whether I liked it – and of course I did, and stayed.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 December 2021 source ↗

@aliabbasi builder

A pilot