• Question: What is the toughest part of being a scientist?

    Asked by georgiareadman to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 13 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Shawn Domagal-Goldman

      Shawn Domagal-Goldman answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      For me, the toughest thing is the “non-science” stuff. These are real jobs, with “real job” duties, and those things take time. So between email and training and meetings and lots and lots of writing sometimes it’s hard to find the time to do the parts I really love – the research and the talking to other people about my research!

    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      I mostly agree with Shawn, but luckily I don’t have too many extra things to do. Sometimes I have to wait for the people I work with because they’re busy or slow, and that can be a pain.

      Really the hard part can be having enough energy to keep thinking all the time. Commonly I get home and have no mental energy left to read a book since I’ve been reading all day already. I find that hard, but I far prefer it over having a mindless job!
      g

    • Photo: Amy Tyndall

      Amy Tyndall answered on 18 Mar 2013:

      I think one of the toughest parts is simply the competition. There are always more people than there are jobs available in astronomy, so you really have to work hard to get a position you want (there could be 60 people applying for one place!). Depending on your subject area, you can also be in competition to get your results out into public before someone else does and gets all the credit, which can be stressful! You also have to compete for time to operate the telescope to get your data, by writing a good argument as to why your object should be observed and why it’s important.

      But having said that, when you ARE successful and win that position / get that paper out / get time on the telescope, it’s a great feeling because you know it must be good to have been able to beat everyone else! 😀

Comments