• Question: What is it like being a scientist

    Asked by u12reeda to Susan, Simon, Rachel, Lou, Dilwar on 7 Nov 2013. This question was also asked by agillespie.
    • Photo: Simon Langley-Evans

      Simon Langley-Evans answered on 7 Nov 2013:

      Incredibly exciting bits mixed with some boring parts to. Working in a laboratory means you have to master some practical skills. Once you have those you sometimes have to repeat the same experiment over and over and over and over and over (get my point?) again. But then just as the repetition is starting to drive you crazy you get to find out something that nobody has ever seen before. After that you tell the world all about it and those parts are the biggest buzz that you can ever have.

    • Photo: Louise Brown

      Louise Brown answered on 7 Nov 2013:

      Sometimes it is really really boring! Waiting for cells to grow or counting cells is really dull! But then getting results from experiments is really exciting! And making my cells fluorescent and watching them move about under the microscope is really really fun!

      It’s nice to feel part of a little team in the lab, and it is fun to show your work at big scientific meetings and learn about other peoples work too!

    • Photo: Susan Skelton

      Susan Skelton answered on 8 Nov 2013:

      Being a scientist is FANTASTIC!

      You get to be the world number 1 expert on your topic!! And sometimes you are the first person in the world to learn something new – that is the best feeling ever!!

      But this knowledge also brings mixed feelings: on one hand, you learn more about the world around you, but on the other hand, you find more and more unanswered questions, illustrating the famous saying: “the more you know, the more you know that you don’t know”. This usually makes me impatient to do more research, but sometimes it can be a bit scary.

      There is a lot of job satisfaction (for example, the feeling of relief and pride when an experiment finally works) as well as frustration (when things don’t go to plan). In many research jobs, scientists have a lot of freedom to choose what to work on and even what hours they work.

      Scientists are also very rational people and tend to think critically about things. We have to learn how to judge information and come to a logical conclusion using only the facts and not let our personal opinion or preferences get in the way. So even in my life outside of work, I find I always try to think very carefully about the information when I have to make a decision about something.

      But overall we are fairly normal (whatever that means!) people just like everyone else, and in our spare time we enjoy doing all the things other people like doing.

Comments