• Question: are there times where you don't want to be a scientist any more ???

    Asked by thatcherjoelelly to Sam, Richard, Majid, hannahmoir, Charlotte on 8 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by Jxgocatxn.
    • Photo: Sam Smith

      Sam Smith answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      @thatcherjoelelly – honestly? It happened the other day.

      I was trying to get a study done very quickly and I kept getting told that it wasn’t going to be possible. That made me get quite frustrated and think that I could be doing better things elsewhere. But after a 30 minute break, I went back and managed to resolve the issues and move on. The study is on track, and will hopefully make a difference to NHS policy in the next few months. Persevering is the key thing in science!

    • Photo: Hannah Moir

      Hannah Moir answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      Interesting point! And I would say anyone who says NO is lying, I’m sure everyone foes through bad days in whatever they do, and i’m sure you get the same feelings at school that when things haven’t gone to plan or don’t work out, for example if our experiments don’t do what we expect or just don’t work, this affects your confidence and motivation and some days you just don’t want to continue, but then something else will come along and boost your interest and motivation again.

    • Photo: Charlotte Green

      Charlotte Green answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      Yes to be honest there are and I agree with Hannah anyone who says NO is not being honest with themselves. However, I find that after a good night sleep and looking at things with fresh eyes it is never as bad as it seemed in the heat of the moment. Science goes wrong and can be frustrating from time to time but the best thing to do is learn from it and move on. Sometimes change is better than a rest so if I am very frustrated with a particular experiment I will focus on a different area of my research for a bit and that always helps 🙂

    • Photo: Majid Ahmed

      Majid Ahmed answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      I don’t think there is any job/career in the world where people don’t want to do their job at certain times. Every job/career has it’s ups and downs and being a scientist is no different. In the end what matters is if a job provides more satisfaction than hardship.

      As the others have mentioned, research requires dedication, sometimes very long hours, resilience (the ability to try again and again), determination and motivation to succeed, etc.

      But the benefits are great as well. I get to travel, present work at conferences, publish journal articles which helps boost my reputation, use my brain to figure out answers to questions that we have, do experiments that sometimes only a few people in the whole world can do and I get to work with some great people.

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