• Question: what is like being a scientist ?

    Asked by soph832 to Zoe, Sharon, Daniel, Jon, Louise on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by supergirl786, govindpreet, stephaniiee12, diksha, danp, spongebob, msquire, scientist124, thomcha, dantheman.
    • Photo: Zoe Duck

      Zoe Duck answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Fun- when you get results you have been waiting for for a week 🙂

      Tiring- sometimes there are long experiments to do :s

      Exciting- Knowing that you are the first person to discover something 😀

      Hard work, but usually worth it!

    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      It’s the best job I’ve ever had, or could imagine for me. That’s because it’s more than just a job – it’s a passion, and often an obsession.

      There are times when it is tough. You don’t get paid as much as many other jobs, and there is a lot of uncertainty, which can be stressful – you never know that you’re going to get the funding you need to carry on your research in the future. But that’s true of a lot of other jobs – and the moments of discovery in science make it all worth it.

      Life is very short, and the Universe we live in is an amazing place. Being a scientist means I get to explore the incredible world around us. Personally, I can’t think of a better way for me to spend the time that I have. And in a small way, I hope that everything I find out as a scientist will go on to help people find out even more in the future (and hopefully help people through what we find out), after I am gone.

    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Fun 😀

      Seriously, there are very few jobs where you get to do your very favourite thing, with a lot of freedom, for money! Plus the hours are quite flexible (though this depends who you work for), you get to travel when you go to conferences or to do experiments abroad (like at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, if you’re a particle physicist), and you can even live abroad for a few years and experience a completely different culture.

      I love my work, and it feels like a huge privilege to have my job. It was hard work to get here, and although the money’s not brilliant for the amount of training you have to do (medical doctors get paid much more for a similar training time!), I’m not poor.

      In addition, I get a real buzz from knowing that I’m doing something that may help society in the future, as well as (hopefully) adding to the huge sum of human knowledge!

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      It is really great being a scientist. I get to do a job that I love every day, and I get to go home at night thinking that I might have helped, even in a tiny way, move closer to getting a cure for some diseases.
      My job is really varied and it’s often exciting when you discover new things, I also get to travel around, to learn new techniques and to present my work at conferences!

      I can’t imagine doing anything else!

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