• Question: What is the hardest thing about being a scientist?

    Asked by anon-312833 on 15 Mar 2022. This question was also asked by anon-323348.
    • Photo: Lesley Howell

      Lesley Howell answered on 15 Mar 2022:

      This one is relatively easy to answer – the hardest thing is when your experiments just dont work and you can not work out why. This can be really frustrating and requires you to stay motivated and keep thinking and reading about why this might be the case.

    • Photo: Amit Vernekar

      Amit Vernekar answered on 18 Mar 2022:

      The hardest thing is why you cannot explain a new reaction progressing with a new mechanism. Takes a lot of time.

    • Photo: Veselina Georgieva

      Veselina Georgieva answered on 18 Mar 2022:

      Trying to be fixing something that doesn’t work or achieve something that has never been done

    • Photo: Mohanad Aldib

      Mohanad Aldib answered on 18 Mar 2022:

      The hardest thing of a scientist working in a research and development environment is facing different types of challenges so often and therefore you need to be able to keep learning and creating new techniques to deal with new issues. Being a scientist is also a responsibility, because your findings will be relayed on by decision makers in the organisation where you work.

    • Photo: Ioanna Maria Pateli

      Ioanna Maria Pateli answered on 21 Mar 2022:

      I would say that you have to face failure at a regular basis, either because the experiment was unsuccessful or your manuscript was rejected from a journal etc. So, you need to be patient and persistent to your goal and to your work.

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