What’s your favourite thing about your job

Amy Mason answered on 13 May 2020:

That is a good question!

I think there are several things I like about my job, so my answer to which is my favorite changes a lot. I like doing outreach, like talking on here, which I don’t strictly get paid to do but my department encourages everyone to do some and even helps fund us organising events for Science Festivals.

I also like coding – I like the concentration and working out how to solve a problem.

James Beswick answered on 13 May 2020:

Great question! I love the fact that I get to make molecules that have never been made before. This can come with its own challenges, but the idea that I am doing something that has never been done before is really exciting.

Alex Holmes answered on 13 May 2020:

what a good question!

i love being able to plan my own time and experiments and usually I never do the same thing 2 days in a row so i don’t get bored. I also love being the first one to find something out or get some data or solve a particular problem.

I also have a lot of opportunities to talk to people about my research – either other scientists, or students like you or university students or people in pubs! I love hearing what other people think about science and getting to tell them about cool stuff I do

Helena Fisk answered on 13 May 2020:

Hi Amy! Much like the others I really enjoy talking to others about my research, working with students like yourself, or travelling to great places to present at conferences (I have been super lucky to travel to South Africa, Las Vegas, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Ireland and around England so far with my work!). However, none of that would be possible without doing the basic research to get the info to share with people! I work in the lab and on human clinical trials so love the mix of clinical, laboratory, and people skills and experience that brings. I also enjoy problem solving and the freedom my work can have to follow your own interests as you get new results and discover new things, even if these weren’t what you set out to find!

Lucy McGowan answered on 13 May 2020:

I love taking beautiful pictures and videos of living cells which are making bone. We can make a specific types of cells like immune cells or bone cells glow in the dark. This means that I can watch how they help to heal fractures. It’s amazing watching tiny living cells move around doing their jobs and the microscopes I get to use to do this are pretty fancy and awesome too!

I love that I no two days are the same in my job and I have lots of freedom to try new ideas and design my own experiments!

Sophie Adjalley answered on 13 May 2020:

I like that I get to meet and exchange with scientists from different parts of the world and that I have a lot of freedom and flexibility to explore the biology of a parasite that still affects many people worldwide.

Judith Sleeman answered on 13 May 2020:

Sitting in a small, dark room taking pictures and movies of cells on a microscope! In general, I love planning experiments with my team, carrying out the experiments and using the results to plan the next lot. I don’t like all of the university-related paperwork I have to deal with! I used to love having the opportunity to travel to conferences and to work in labs in different countries, but it’s hard to find the time (and funding) for that sometimes and it can be tricky to juggle with family life as well.

Sophie Pritchard answered on 13 May 2020:

I love having such a varied day! One day can consist of a scientific talk, a meeting to discuss process improvements, doing experiments and writing an article for our newsletter. Not one day is the same in science!

Emma Daniels answered on 13 May 2020: last edited 13 May 2020 11:43 am

Hi Amy and Tias, great question! There are so many things I like about being a PhD researcher! I love learning new things through research. I find it very exciting to know that I’m trying to answer questions that nobody knows the answer to yet. It’s can also be very rewarding. But my favorite thing is getting to work with lots of people from a range of backgrounds. I work in a lab with around 15 other researches (sometimes even more when we have project students!) and we get to share ideas with each other and help each other when our research isn’t quite going to plan (which happens quite a lot…). It’s like having a second family! I also get lots of opportunities to visit other departments and universities, where I can get meet even more people and learn new things from them.

Beth Webb answered on 13 May 2020:

Thanks for your question! I love being in the lab, I really enjoy planning and carrying out experiments. I like the problem-solving aspect of it and being in the lab is very practical and hands-on which I enjoy. It always feels rewarding when you put effort into an experiment and it pays off with the results giving you a better understanding than what you had before. Every day is different which definitely keeps things very interesting. I also really enjoy working with my group colleagues, we all get on really well and can work and have fun in the lab together.

Eleanor Williams answered on 13 May 2020:

Really good question! I think I have two favourite things – the first is that I like doing physical things in the lab – practical experiments are really good fun and I really enjoy the mix of running experiments and collecting data and then spending time looking at the data to work out what it means. The second thing I love about my job is when I find out something new – research is all about finding new things and sharing it but there is a small moment when you look at some new data for the first time or you finish analysing it and take a step back and look at what it means, and you realise that you are the first person in the world to ever see this particular thing or know this particular fact. To know that for that brief moment until you start telling people about it, you are the only person out of billions to have found this small thing is really exciting (even if the fact its self is quite small and only one step in a bigger process).

Keiran Raine answered on 13 May 2020:

Hi Amy, my job is one giant puzzle. I spend my days finding the right set of tools (or creating them) to help answer questions on the genetic make up of cancer or mutations that naturally accumulate during our lives (somatic mutations).

This can be highly varied, from meetings with senior scientific staff, digging in code and documentation all the way through to generating visualisations to better explain findings or changes to methods in use.

Gavin McStay answered on 14 May 2020:

Being a biologist in the lab allows you to discover new things and I am constantly able to learn new things. I also like talking about biology with other biologists – this is how new ideas are formed – and also talking to non-biologists to help people understand some of the amazing things about biology.

Laura Durrant answered on 14 May 2020:

Great question Amy! I love the variability. We handle lots of different types of DNA samples, which need different things done to them before they are sequenced. This poses challenges and keeps us on our toes! I also love that I get to see first-hand how DNA is sequenced and how it is progressing at such a fast rate. Just 20 years ago, it took months to sequence the human genome – now it takes less than a day! Pretty inspirational stuff.

Alena Pance answered on 15 May 2020:

I like looking at the data and thinking about its meaning,

Question: What’s your favourite thing about your job

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