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Asked by anon-349788 on 2 Mar 2023.
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Thomas Swift answered on 2 Mar 2023:
Different every day.
Sometimes I set up lab projects that need me to look after the instrument / take readings at 9 or 10 pm at night. But that is incredibly rare, and only when I plan the work that way. Quite often I can get my lab work done by 2 pm in the afternoon and go home for the day.I love the flexibility of this job – I measure myself from ‘what I’ve accomplished’ rather than how many hours it took to get there. Some days I spend the entire day just talking to people, discussing big ideas and theorising about what we ‘could’ do.
Doing laboratory work is expensive so it’s better to plan everything you do out, make sure whatever you actually ‘do’ is worthwhile and meaningful. Nobody wants to spend time in the lab if it isn’t producing anything – so an extra hour thinking, planning and researching before you step up to the bench is always worthwhile.
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Rebecca Walker answered on 2 Mar 2023:
One of the best things about being a scientist is that there is a different schedule every day, and no two days are ever the same!
If I don’t have fixed teaching responsibilities (like a class to teach at 9am!) I can plan my own day around research tasks or things like writing a paper, marking class tests, having meetings with colleagues or students and socialising with other members of the Chemistry Department.
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Rebecca Woods answered on 3 Mar 2023:
I’m now an associate lecturer so my schedule is quite routine at the moment, I spend mornings preparing material, reading scientific papers, answering emails, going to talks by different researchers, the odd meeting and my afternoons teaching in the undergraduate laboratory.
When I was doing my PhD, my schedule was a lot more varied, some days I would be doing long experiments which take a full day with only a short break for lunch, other days the experiments only took an hour or so. As well as practical lab work, I would spend my time doing analysis (I love a good NMR spectra to analyse), reading papers, going to/preparing/presenting talks or poster presentations and for the last few months writing up my thesis (an 60-80,000 word document about your research).
There is a lot of flexibility in science depending on where you work, most of us find routines that work for us.
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Arno Kraft answered on 3 Mar 2023:
It’s one of those rare jobs where you don’t count the hours until the weekend. And there is the flexibility to plan your own day and, at least some times, do what you want to do.
My day starts early, at 5:30am. This may sound awfully early but I like it since everything is quiet and nothing pops into my e-mail box at that time of the day. Work gets interrupted frequently during the day. For this reason, it is therefore quite nice to have a few hours “on my own” where I can plan or think.
The typical daywork starts around 9am: teaching, some meetings. Most of the time is spent in front of a computer, with the odd interruption for teaching or speaking to project students or going for a coffee.
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Grace Roper answered on 6 Mar 2023:
I tend to work Monday to Friday from ~8.30-17.30, but this varies based on the experiments/other tasks. Some days I need to work from 8.00-18.30 to fit in longer experiments, but I try to balance these days with a 16.00 finish another day when I can.
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Jade Markham answered on 6 Mar 2023:
When I was in the lab I worked 8 till 4 everyday, but Friday where I can leave at 3:30. Then its 30 minutes for lunch. I just moved into the Business side of the company and I do the same.
Everyday is different and your tasks and deadline for those tasks vary.
I would hate to have a very routine job, where I do the same day in and day out, so for me I love this.
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Jo Ellis answered on 6 Mar 2023:
It’s quite variable each day, but as I have a team we usually go through what needs to be done by who and by when. Normally I am working to a few customers requests so it can be really busy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it. My different jobs in science over the last 30 years have been awesome
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