• Question: i think wat ur working for is amazing but on a scale from 1 to 10 how hard and time consuming is it ???

    Asked by lolydoodle12 to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 15 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Alison Graham

      Alison Graham answered on 15 Jun 2012:


      I think it depends what you mean by “hard”. Some stuff that I have done has been intellectually demanding e.g. very difficult scientific concepts to understand, whereas other stuff is not that difficult to understand(quite routine really) but there is so much of it to do that you wonder how you are going to get it all done! I guess this links into the time consuming part of your question.

      As a scientist, you have to manage your time really well. Sometimes need to use a specific piece of equipment that is only available for a certain period of time therefore you need to do as much as you can in the time available. Other times you may be doing experiments that last all day and cannot be stopped halfway through. I used to do experiments that followed the growth of bacteria and these lasted 13 hours (not counting traveling time to and from the lab – long days!). I had to measure the bacteria every hour which took about 20 mins each time.

      Overall, I would probably say about an 8 out of 10 – there are harder and more time-consuming jobs you can do but science is definitely up there near the top. It’s not a 9-to-5 job where you can go home and forget about work (but that’s not necessarily a bad thing)! 🙂

    • Photo: Artem Evdokimov

      Artem Evdokimov answered on 15 Jun 2012:


      Good question,

      As far as difficulty: some of the work is simple – technically – but the difficult part usually comes in during the design of the experiment and when it’s time to figure out what the results mean. For repetitive tasks we now have robots, so at least some of the more boring work can be automated. There are portions of my work that are technically challenging – and there is one component in in particular that requires literally hours of patience and great manual dexterity – that’s the process of mounting tiny protein crystals into loops for data collection. This is similar to neurosurgeons’ work (but less stressful since if I screw up no one has to be paralyzed for life).
      The time component varies greatly – in school (grad school and postdoc) people often work insane hours, without any regard to what happens to one’s personal life. This is not healthy – even though most research groups accept or even encourage this sort of work. As we mature as scientists we learn to be more effective with our work and we also find ways to parcel it into more manageable sections. There is no escape from an occasional all-day experiment – but it does not have to be every day. I second Alison’s statement that it is not a ‘regular job’ – many of us spend 10+ hours doing science every day, but not all of this time is spent at work because we can think regardless of where we are, and that is still very much part of work.

      Artem

    • Photo: John Short

      John Short answered on 20 Jun 2012:


      8 out of 10. It’s hard in that many experiments don’t work because our theories are wrong, and sometimes it’s very difficult to know where to take the project. Experiments also don’t work sometimes because of faulty equipment, materials etc. Time consuming though, it takes up a lot of time during the week and sometimes at weekends too. Some time interval experiments last all night. The rewards are worth it though, and I always time manage well enough to go out, play and watch sports, see friends and family etc 🙂

Comments