• Question: Is your worked more calcualtions based or do you spend more time experimenting?

    Asked by ceceliab to Catherine, Charlotte, Colin, Becki, Rick on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Rebecca Scott

      Rebecca Scott answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      It all depends on what I am being asked to do. If, for example, it is a standard analysis of a material to determine the composition, then there is a fairly even balance of lab time and desk work. The calculations all tend to be fairly standard and I can set them up in an excel programme or a stats programme. If however, I’m given a research question to work on (which is always more fun) then I get to design and run the experiments and these can be anything. So sometimes they involve a lot of calculations and other times loads more practical work. But I have the advantage of also being able to go and do field work which is always more practical (and fun) than calculations 🙂

    • Photo: Charlotte Dalton

      Charlotte Dalton answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      I mostly do experiments to make new chemicals which we use in our research that you can’t buy or that no one has made before, also in my PhD I will be using light to study the interaction of sugars and proteins which will be more calculation based once the data is collected

    • Photo: Colin Swift

      Colin Swift answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      I’d say mine is more calculation based than experiment. I have to assess situations and advise on the best way to for example operate a laser safely. I will get to do experiments in my research though, but as I’ve only been working at my current job for two months this is just getting off the ground.

    • Photo: Catherine Fontinelle

      Catherine Fontinelle answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Experiments 95% calculations 5%

Comments