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Asked by radioactivecallum to Angus, Christian, Hannah, Laura, Simon on 14 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by 1dsuperfan, superman3.
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Simon Holyoake answered on 14 Jun 2013:
Being a scientist or engineer is both very difficult and very rewarding, there are moments of real joy when an experiment reveals interesting data (often data you didn’t expect is even better than data you did!) and when you see something you have designed and built working and gathering data.
There are also moments of great stress and difficulty, when experiments don’t go to plan, or equipment fails, or hardware you’ve worked on for weeks goes bang when you switch it on…..
I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys learning new things every day, working on a large variety of things and enjoys getting their teeth into a challenge!
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Christian Maerz answered on 14 Jun 2013:
I can strongly recommend it to anybody how is curious about something and wants to find out more about it. Like in every other job, there are phases when the scientist job is a bit boring (computer work), and if you want to be a scientist you need to be able to get through these phases until it starts being fun again (for example, being on a ship as I am right now). My suggestion would be to check at your closest university if they do research on a topic you are interested in, and then write an email to a scientist or secretary to ask for an internship. Then you can get a much better idea about what a scientist actually does. I should probably also say that it is not a 9 to 5 job, and it’s not a job that will make you rich. But I find it extremely satisfying!
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Angus Ferraro answered on 17 Jun 2013:
It’s very rewarding because you get to decide how to do your job. OK, so it has to be to do with whatever branch of science you’re working on, but you still get to the end and think ‘that’s all mine’. It’s not a normal 9-5 job though. Sometimes I can take time off whenever but I have to make it up another time. I never stop thinking about my work. Some of my best ideas come just as I’m about to go to sleep so I have to get up and write them down quickly!
Some parts of the job can be boring. Science is very creative and exciting, but there are also bits where you just need to make sure your experiment has gone exactly right, or very carefully check some numbers or something like that.
I think it’s a great job if you never want to stop learning. The learning won’t be the same as school though, because you get to decided what you learn and how you learn it!
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Laura Roberts Artal answered on 17 Jun 2013:
Do you like answer questions? Solve puzzles? Do you ask why things are the way they are a lot? Do you like learning new things, testing ideas? Then, I would recommend being a scientist!
It is not always easy, things don’t always go to plan (I had to restart an experiment that I’d be working on for 10 days because I made a mistake!). The results aren’t always exciting, but when everything comes together and you make a discovery or you realise you understood something you’d been working on for weeks (even months), there is NO feeling like it :)!
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Hannah Bentham answered on 18 Jun 2013:
Being a seismologist is amazing!
Earthquakes are fascinating – the way they happen, where they occur and the energy they send out. Most earthquakes are too small to cause any damage but sometimes there’s a catastrophic event. I like being part of a science discipline where we can try and help people against hazards, but also explore the cause of earthquakes and use their energy to know more about the Earth.
I get to travel all over the world, meeting with amazing scientist and local people who have experience earthquakes. It’s very rewarding.
I would totally recommend it!
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