• Question: What is it like being a sciencetist

    Asked by watsonka04 to Amelia, Jim, Liz, Prateek, Richard on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by kempgj01, eniko.
    • Photo: Jim Caryl

      Jim Caryl answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      It’s good fun! It is nice to work in a job that doesn’t really feel like ‘work’, but instead feels like a hobby, but one that you get paid for doing. It takes many years of hard work to train as a scientist, and the training and learning never end – there is always more to find out and understand. So it feels good to be in the privileged position where government money is given to you, and you are entrusted to do go out there and improve our understanding of the world we live in.

    • Photo: Richard Badge

      Richard Badge answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Being a scientist is fun – otherwise we wouldn’t do it… Its rather like having the chance to be paid to do what you would do anyway.

      Having said that scientists take very seriously the fact that we can only do what we do because tax payers (through the government) think science is useful and can have benefits, that make it worth paying for.

      Ultimately nobody “needs” a scientist like they need a doctor or a builder, but in the long term science does improves everybodies lives.

      Richard

    • Photo: Lizzard O'Day

      Lizzard O'Day answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      It’s like being an explorer- you get to ask questions, wonder, be creative and at times you may not know where you going next but ultimately you know the direction you want to head in. It’s hard work but it’s the coolest job in the world~

    • Photo: Amelia Markey

      Amelia Markey answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I love being a scientist and like the others I think it’s great fun too.

      You get to learn something new almost every day, you get to look deeply into subjects that you find really interesting and you get to meet tons of interesting people. Sometimes it can be a bit annoying when things don’t work or when you’ve got lots of work to do and very little time to do it but it’s all worthwhile when your experiments give you interesting results (not always what you expected) and when you get to talk to people about all the cool things you’ve done.

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