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Asked by Jessica to Gemma, Hussain, Robert, Ross on 6 Nov 2015.
Question: Have you ever doubted being a scientist?
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Ross King answered on 6 Nov 2015:
There can be a few times when you doubt being a scientist. This usually happens if you go through a phase of experiments not working out or feeling like your work maybe isn’t going as well or in the direction you’d like it to. Also, we don’t really earn loads of money so sometimes you think if it’s really worth it or not!
At the end of the day, you usually come out of feeling like this (usually after getting that first good result in a few weeks!) and you realise how amazing it is to be working at the cutting edge of research. If you’re really really optimistic, you can kind of imagine how the work you’re doing might fit in to making new drugs for the treatment of some really horrible diseases.
In general, I’m pretty happy with being a scientist and I always know that I’ll come out of the other side of the bad times in one piece!
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Hussain Jaffery answered on 13 Nov 2015:
I think it’s quite natural to have a certain degree of doubt when choosing any career or area to work in. I have had concerns about being a scientist, I know that I want to be a scientist for as long as possible. 🙂
What Ross is saying is essentially right. Sometimes the experiments you’re working on don’t work and you get stuck, and demotivated. this is normal and as a scientist you have to learn to cope with some disappointments. What makes them bearable is that when you get some really interesting result or come up with a really cool question to explore, you realise why you’re doing science.
The money situation in public-funded research isn’t super, but that does not mean there aren’t companies who pay better that are willing to take you on. A lot of pharmaceutical companies, for example, are always looking for good biological scientists to help find new drugs for diseases – you can work for them, while still being a scientist. 🙂
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