• Question: What is the worst part of your job?

    Asked by radsare1005 to Daniela, Hannah, Ian, Jono, Mark on 21 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Ian Wilson

      Ian Wilson answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Hi radsare1005,

      I think the worst part of my PhD, and science as a whole actually, is the way things will go wrong, sometimes for no good reason. Unfortunately, some experiments just don’t work – either they don’t show what you hoped, or you make a mistake and they don’t run properly, or they don’t work and you never find out why!

      Now this might sound like it should completely put us off our work, but it really doesn’t. And that’s because we’re just too curious to be put off! We have to know what will happen when the experiment works properly and what results we’ll get eventually. So, the work can be difficult (and occasionally seem unfair) but, if you love your subject like I do, then you’ll forgive it and keep pushing ahead. It all just teaches you to be more patient!

      Hope that helps and doesn’t put you off at all lol!!!

      Ian

    • Photo: Hannah Brotherton

      Hannah Brotherton answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Hi radsare1005,
      I really don’t like the writing part of science. There is quite a lot of writing after you do your experiments and after you have gotten excited about doing your practicals and physically do the experiment, the worst thing is making me sit down in a quiet office to write lol.
      I’m the type of person that wants to be up and doing something 24/7

    • Photo: Jono Bone

      Jono Bone answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      Hello radsare1005,

      I’m the same with Ian on this. When things don’t work it can be VERY frustrating as its not always easy to find out how to correct the problems. That said it feels like a great achievement when you do. Unlike Hannah I quite like the part where you read after doing experiments. I enjoy it because its the time I come up with an Idea for whats going on in my data and I feel like a detective!

    • Photo: Daniela Plana

      Daniela Plana answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      Hi radsare1005!

      I’m not very patient, so I don’t like having to wait and some experiments take a very long time and you just have to wait until they are done to see the reults… other times you have to wait for new chemicals to arrive or for equipment to be fixed, etc… definitely don’t like the waiting!

      Daniela

    • Photo: Mark Hodson

      Mark Hodson answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      Hi radsare1005,

      as well as doing research I teach students. I love both these things. The thing I like least is giving students marks. I’m fine marking stuff and making comments, helping students improve but then deciding whether to give someone 57% or 63% of whatever, I find incredibly difficult.

      cheers

      m

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