• Question: why r u doing this...its boringright??/ why do ulike science???????? :)

    Asked by glowackic to Helen, Jenni, Mark, Martin, Stu on 13 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Mark Burnley

      Mark Burnley answered on 11 Jun 2011:

      Being a scientist *can* be boring sometimes, but that is when we are not actually doing science. Here are the boring bits of my job:

      Marking exams and essays, sitting in meetings, reading emails about exams and meetings.

      And here are the bits I like:

      Teaching students new things, supervising PhD students’ research, collecting data, reading the latest scientific findings, analysing my own data and discovering something that nobody else has ever seen before. That last bit is why I like science.

    • Photo: Helen O'Connor

      Helen O'Connor answered on 11 Jun 2011:

      The most boring parts of being a scientist for me are doing all my paperwork so that I keep my professional qualification. Its like one solid month of coursework every year.
      The most interesting thing for me is using the science of psychology (how we think, feel and behave) to help real people do better at sport, or be more healthy by exercising.

    • Photo: Jenni Tilley

      Jenni Tilley answered on 11 Jun 2011:

      Is it boring when Usain Bolt runs the 100m sprint in 9.58s and double amputee Oscar Pistorius runs the 100m sprint in 10.91s? Or when a soildier’s life is saved by his bullet-proof vest? Or even when you get a brand new, even faster ever smaller smart phone?!

      There are definitely boring bits to science, like sitting inside in front of a microscope when the rest of the world is outside enjoying the sunshine, or staying up to midnight trying to analyse some results, but the work that we do impacts people’s lives, every day and that makes it all worth it.

      Like Mark said it’s also exciting to discover something new and teach others about them. Which is why I’m doing IASGMOOH – to learn new things from you guys, and to give you the chance to learn some new things too.

    • Photo: Stuart Mourton

      Stuart Mourton answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      There are some times when my job seems boring, marking 100 essay’s all on the same subject for example! But there are many more ocassions where i realise i’ve been working for 6 hours already and it feels like only a few minutes has passed! When you enjoy your job, it really makes a day’s work fun! Even when i am testing a subject in a lab session and i know we’ll be running computer based tasks for another hour, i still enjoy monitoring their progress and trying to work out how their results are going to fit in with all the other subjects data i have collected.

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