Professor Ian Plimer

And that was far too young to go to university.

So I repeated a year.

I went to university and followed my passion.

And when I finished my undergraduate degree, I took an extra year to study things that I really liked.

I studied counterpoint in music.

I did psychology because that's where all the girls were.

I did botany because I was interested in the relationship between plants and soils and how we do in geology look at vegetation and work out what the rock types are and what's going on.

I did political science, which was a comparison of the British, American and Australian systems.

And they were all very interesting.

And I did English literature.

So I felt then that my degree was complete.

And then I went and worked underground at Broken Hill, which is a mining town that's been operating since 1883.

And that was fascinating.

And I did an honours degree working on the rocks underground.

And then I went off and did a PhD, again, working underground.

This was in far north Queensland.

At the same time, I was part-time tutoring in university.

part-time tutoring in university, that's right.

And then I moved back to Broken Hill.

And that was probably the most productive period of my scientific life.