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Asked by joshyf to Amelia, Jim, Liz, Prateek, Richard on 20 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by laineylol, iftkhai01, lawrencs01, deanhl01, elliemae, bethsutton.
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Jim Caryl answered on 17 Jun 2011:
I tend to work 8-10 hours a day, though when I was a student studying for my PhD, I sometimes worked for up to 16 hrs a day! Though I didn’t have much of a life outside of the lab :-/
These days I have to balance other hobbies such as photography, cycling, reading and writing – and doing I’m a Scientist!
My favourite thing to do at work is the point where you have spent a few days planning an experiment, making sure you have all the materials you need, and then going into the lab to see if your prediction of what would happen actually comes true. Sometimes it doesn’t, and this doesn’t mean the experiment has failed, it can provide as much information as if what you had expected to happen actually happened.
These are the best moments.
Some experiments, however, generate SO MUCH DATA that you can spend weeks and week analysing them before you can tell whether you’ve got anything interesting. These are less fun (until almost at the very end!)
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Amelia Markey answered on 18 Jun 2011:
Well like Jim I tend to work 8-10 hours a day as my experiments don’t tend to take too much time. I like to try and keep things balanced and do lots of things outside of work although the answer to this question might be different next year when I only have a year left to finish all my work!
My favourite thing to do is either planning experiments or playing around with my device and thinking how I can design the other devices I need. I really love coming up with new ideas and trying them out but like Jim says sometimes they don’t always work (or at least not how you expect…which is usually when it’s most interesting!)
I’m also a bit odd, unlike Jim I quite like analysing my data, making graphs, doing lots of statistics…maybe I need some help :s
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Richard Badge answered on 18 Jun 2011:
I work pretty regular hours at work (9am -6pm) because I have a young family, and so always try to get home to have dinner with them. I usually do a few hours work most evenings, but this is mostly writing (papers, reviews, funding proposals) or analysing data, or reasing and researching.
I think my favourite thing to do at work is experiments in the lab – there is a real thrill in starting one morning on an experiment to find something out, and then having the results the next day (or next week, sometimes!).
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Lizzard O'Day answered on 20 Jun 2011:
I’m a bit of an odd-duck. I work whenever I can- I try to get to lab before 8am and I rarely leave (for good) before midnight. That being said- I’m not there straight thru every day. There’s a lot of down time as a scientist- while you wait for things to mix, stir, heat, incubate– so I’ll take regular breaks- hit the gym or work on my fashion line. But then it’s back to lab until the wee hours of the night.
My most favorite thing in the world is work on the 900 MHz NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) machine. It’s a huge (and I mean huge- has it’s own building) machine that let’s me take really detailed information about what a molecule looks like. I love using it 🙂
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