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Asked by anon-349098 on 15 Mar 2023. This question was also asked by anon-349097, anon-357644.
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Sharon Mithoe answered on 15 Mar 2023:
Hi – yes the job can be hard at times, sometimes the ideas that I have or the method I want to apply are difficult to draw conclusions from. Thinking carefully about the next step , repeating until I find a solution can be tough and at times stressful. Finding a result (good or bad) makes a day and is very rewarding
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Alexandra Milliken answered on 15 Mar 2023:
I do get stressed, generally because experiments do not always go to plan. However, by seeing from what has gone wrong during an experiment, I can learn how to make them better next time round. When things get hard, sometimes the best thing to do is to step away from the work and look at it from a different angle, normally the solution will arise soon after.
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Martin Vickers answered on 15 Mar 2023:
I’d like to say I never get annoyed or stressed, but I’d be lying. Although at times my job can be hard, often because of deadlines, I always manage to get everything done. To deal with stress, it’s good to have lots of friends, family (also pets) and hobbies to spend time outside of work doing the things you love. Even though I love being a scientist, it’s good to do other things too because too much of a good thing can make even the most enjoyable task horrible.
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Phil Howell answered on 16 Mar 2023:
It can be tough. Field experiments, no matter how well you plan them, sometimes don’t work because of the weather. Sometimes there’s a lot to do and not really enough time to do it so you end up working longer to get it done. I don’t often have summer holidays because that’s the busiest and best time to be in the field.
It can also be dispiriting at times when you have a great idea and explain it to the people who fund science but they don’t award you any money (it can be really competitive – only 20-30% of grants usually get funded) and you have to start againBut you learn to cope with this. Being able to switch off is important: I find spending time with friends & family, cooking, being outside, sports and exercise are all really helpful. Having supportive colleagues who understand and are happy to talk to you about things also helps.
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Caroline Stone answered on 16 Mar 2023:
I definitely get stressed sometimes. Usually scientists are really motivated and personally invested in working on their project, and so when it doesn’t work it can be demoralising. Usually I can overcome it by taking a break and approaching it from another angle, and talking to my colleagues, friends, or family for encouragement.
Even if you didn’t get a positive result, you can still take pride in carrying out the experiment rigerously and being sure of your negative result. This is still useful information for other scientists to have, otherwise they might waste their time by trying it too!
Comments
Alison commented on :
Science typically can be quite annoying, I remember trying to make a transgenic plant once which took two years of it basically not working, then it worked and we got loads of data and understanding from it, so glad I didnt just give up on it. As Sharon mentioned having the results is very rewarding and always makes up for the annoying or frustrating parts of the job. I made plants that glow under blue light so that I can see a protein and understand its role – visually seeing it glow yellow (Yellow Fluorescent Protein – YFP) under the microscope is an amazing feeling! What I always say to my students is not to give up but keep trying, and try not to get too stressed if things don’t work the first time. Sometimes it is a case of just repeating the work, and other times it is looking at the problem from a different direction and trying again. Overall we do our job because we love it, and any stress or annoyance is out balanced out by all the good bits in our work, and we enjoy what we do.