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Asked by wisely to Alice JB, Andy, Barbara, James, Jo on 15 Jun 2011.
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Andy Norton answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Sometimes! I think that, whatever you do in life, whether at school, at work, in a youth group etc., if you end up doing the same things over and over again, you’ll become bored. One of the really great things about science (not just what I do, or what everyone else in this group does, but science in all sorts of areas) is that you can do a whole load of different experiments related to the same thing, so each day/week/month can be really different. For example, if I take this week coming as an example, today I am preparing samples for compression tests, tomorrow I am on the microscope for the morning, and then I’ll look at my images in the afternoon, Wednesday I am smashing my ceramics, Thursday I am doing some teaching, and Friday I am on the Focussed Ion Beam making tiny little samples to do tests on. So it is pretty varied! For most science research, you do have to do a lot of different experiments (you can’t always trust the results from one sort of experiment, so you try various different things to make the project well rounded), and that makes everything much less boring.
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Alice Jones Bartoli answered on 14 Jun 2011:
I’ve just spent two hours in a meeting where we talked about finances and other exciting things… so I’m going to say yes. It’s also sometimes boring to run the same set of analyses over and over again in order to get everything ready to ask real questions of your data. Although it IS satisfying to get through it all and get some interesting answers. However… it is completely true that it’s not always like this, most of my days are massively varied.
I am also Admissions’ Tutor for my department, so some days I spend reading through UCAS forms and interviewing new students, I also teach on several different courses, so I also spend time with undergraduate and Masters’ students. I work with a couple of different PhD students on their projects, and also some of my staff colleagues. I also like to make a bit of time for coffee and cake (this is v. important).
Tomorrow, I’m heading to York to join a conference where a group of scientists will be talking to school science teachers about their work, and thinking about better ways to bring current science to schools. This isn’t something I do every week, and it’s exciting and fun – it’s good for us to be a bit creative sometimes, and do something different.
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James Jennings answered on 14 Jun 2011:
It does happen from time to time, as you would expect with any job. In my PhD I know that I have the freedom to change from one activity to another. There is always plenty to be doing, and sometimes having a break from one area that is becoming boring can be good- next time I come back to it I may have a fresh outlook, and new ideas.
For example, there is always reading to be done, in the form of scientific articles published in scientific journals. I don’t look at many text books these days (though maybe I should)! So if I need a break from experimental work, I might read through some of these, and in the process I may learn something. This could then give me ideas for new and exciting experiments, and suddenly my interest is revived!
So overall I would say that being bored is something that happens but not for a long time, in my experience.
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Barbara Guinn answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Sometimes. I fall asleep less often in lectures now and I try and fidget less. But yes, sometimes listening to people talk about their work, after lunch, for an hour, in a dark warm room can help me drift into restless uncomfortable sleep sat in a chair. Some things need to be done (health and safety) and can be super boring. Mostly I find science and my job busy, fun and varied but sometimes………
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Jo Hulsmans answered on 15 Jun 2011:
Yes, it can definitely get boring, but working in science is one of the most varied things you can do, I spend my days doing experiments, going to seminars from other scientists, writing up my work and educating other masters and undergraduate students. It is a very challenging job and you have to use your head all the time and be very good at planning things (which I’m not), but it is very rewarding!
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