My story

Lucy Evans and her ideas-worth-spreading path.

When I first heard about TEDx in my second year at Edinburgh, I knew I wanted to be involved. I was already doing a lot of student radio and wanted to find a way of bringing that to TEDx, so I covered the 2015 conference and made a podcast. It was inspiring to interview all the speakers and see the impact of the day on the crowd, so I gladly returned the next year to cover it again.

Both years I remember distinctly my feeling of admiration for all the speakers and a desire to be a part of that community, and as I neared my fourth year and the inevitable bucket-list of what to do before hitting the scary “real world” was brought out, I realised being a student speaker was right at the top. As an actor I do a lot performing on stage, and I have been thinking a lot about how those skills can be harnessed for a good cause such as TEDx. I saw though that I have never really spoken my own words on stage, only those written by someone else, and thinking about what exactly I would talk about was more challenging that I had expected.

Something I’ve always been passionate about is the need to stop separating science and art — people are often surprised when they hear I study science, and the truth is I always resented having to choose between arts and sciences back in year 9. But science is creative interlinked with art, so it seems incomprehensible to separate them so early. This is something I realised I wanted to talk about, both because I have a personal relationship with the subject but also because I think it’s universally important.

It’s been such a great experience being in the workshops and learning not only from all the great invited instructors but also from all the other student speakers, who are all amazing. Overall I’m so glad I applied!