Questions on educational options

[Getting A Life]

Hiya

I am an adult student at Auckland university sitting yr 12/13 entry levels for uni proper next year. I wonder at people's opinions of options available to me in my fields of interest.

Science is fascinating, in so many areas. I want to be the kind of scientist who can work across a few fields. Boring doing same thing forever

A jigsaw puzzle guy, if you will. Just putting the pieces together and claiming originality.

The 'pieces' I'm interested in are varied. Biofilms for remediation of wastes and polluted waterways. Fungal symbionts, medicinals, and pathogens. Soil trophic levels from bacteria to arthropods. Plant physiology, alellopathy, plant medicine.

This year I took biology chemistry english and math which got me thinker up to scratch again (old cogs needed greasing).

I'll start a BSc in Microbiology with 1st paper at summer school being stats. Then I'll do 8 papers in the year. Bio 101, biomed, plants microbes and society, more math to prep for physics, biochem, chem, ecology and conservation, physics.

Am I covering my bases well for starters?

Am I missing anything obvious?

Experience is always helpful. I'd not have realised I needed stats without questioning post grads.

[Donk]

I remember a research institute I worked at once. They had a guy there whose job was to walk around the place, asking everyone what they were doing. The rest of the time he spent reading science journals.

He had a vast, all-inclusive memory which would make a connection every now and then. He'd say to a group "your project is very similar to one that the Floor 8 group did about ten years ago. Go and ask them - you'll find that they've done a lot of the groundwork for you."

A few connections like that every month saved the institute a fortune. He was the nearest I've ever seen to a scientific generalist, rather than a specialist, but he was a one-off. When he retired, he wasn't replaced.

It sounds like that's the sort of job you want, but I have no idea how you'd go about getting it. A half-dozen PhDs, maybe?