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Asked by anon-205639 to Russell, Kathryn, Gabriel, Jose Angel on 4 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by anon-205619.
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Russell Arnott answered on 4 Mar 2019:
Because I stopped being a scientist for so long (I became a teacher for 7 years), it was really difficult for me to remember how to learn when I went back to university!
I also found it frustrating because I’d forgotten lots of things that I used to know; for example I used to be ok at Maths but like any skill, if you don’t use it, you lose it! It’s been a lot of hardwork learning my maths again and learning how to do coding on the computer…
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Kathryn Boast answered on 5 Mar 2019:
I sometimes found it hard to stay motivated. When you do lots of experiments that don’t work, and nothing seems to be going right, it can be hard to keep going. I also sometimes had to work hard to understand some of the theory behind the experiments – there was some complicated maths and physics that I had to wrap my head around.
I think it was probably harder than I expected because it was looking at something much bigger and on a much longer timescale than I was used to. Normally at school or university, you work on a piece of homework for maybe a week, then you move onto something else. You might study a topic for one term and then change topics. At most, you work towards exams at the end of the year, and then the next year you start something new. But in research you can often have *much* longer timelines than this – for example, I was working on roughly the same thing for four years!! I think I found this quite hard to deal with. But I think that’s also subject-dependent: in particle physics (the area I did my first research in) you are often working with lots of people (maybe hundreds or thousands) on experiments that can take ten years or more to design, build and run to get the data. I suspect other areas of science sometimes move faster than this! Other scientists – any thoughts? -
Jose Angel Martinez-Gonzalez answered on 5 Mar 2019: last edited 5 Mar 2019 11:28 am
I totally agree with Kathryn. Motivation is one of the main problems of scientists. On the one hand you have the experiments that do not come out, or that the results are not what you thought would come out and you have to rearrange your head to understand what has happened.
And not only that part, but also the writing and publication of the results, which is one of the most important parts of any job. It is when you prepare an article for a journal and you wait until after at least two other scientists, experts in the subject, have read and reviewed it, it can be made public. This moment is crucial and sometimes the hardest because sometimes it can be several months until they give you an answer, affirmative or not.
Another hard moment, is the search for a new position. Normally many of the scientists, we only have contracts for one or two years, there are people lucky to have contracts of three or more years. And normally a little before finishing the work, you have to go looking for a new one (even if you are really motivated in that place) because there are no funds so you can stay longer. It is true that this allows you to know the world, but sometimes that makes you move away from places where you were very comfortable.
There is not a moment that is more difficult than another, I suppose that each one has its difficulties. -
Gabriel Gallardo answered on 6 Mar 2019:
Physics is a pretty tough field. I remember the first time I tried to read a paper or attend a meeting – I had no clue what was going on. But after working in this field for about three years, there are moments when I find myself speaking, quite eloquently, with words that used to be jibberish to me. I guess you just learn as you go!
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