• Question: At school, were you naturally clever/able to grasp Science, or did you have to work hard in order to achieve? What advice would you give to someone who likes science but finds it more challenging?

    Asked by annaxo to Guido, Ed, Dave on 11 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Dave Bond

      Dave Bond answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Hello,

      If you like and enjoy science you are already most of the way there. I think there are no quick fixes other than keep working at it. There are many things I find challenging still in my day job. No one is perfect. These are just the things that take longer to do and require more thought.

      It is often good to try and look at the issue in another way. Is the problem something that can be broken down into smaller bits? In computing most of the realy complex things are a combination of smaller simpler programs working together to achieve the complex thing.

      As always ask questions, there is no such thing as a silly question and asking questions is part of being a scientist.

    • Photo: Ed Rial

      Ed Rial answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Hi

      At school I was one of the kids who seemed to just ‘understand’ science. But my teachers hated it because I didn’t work very hard!

      It got difficult for me at university though because I didn’t have the skills required to learn things I found hard. That was when I learned tricks that worked for me. It is easier to understand a problem if you work with other people, because they will have different ways of looking at things that might make more sense to you. Also, by trying to explain things back to other people it forces you to get the ideas straight in your head, and that helped a lot.

      Also, as Dave said, break the problem down. Diamond is an enormously complicated machine when taken all together, but break it down far enough and you realise it is just a big collection of simple parts.

      I’m glad you enjoy science, and I hope the sense of achievement when you have worked hard to understand something – and then you do – feels as good for you as it does for me.

      Ed

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