• Question: How long did it take for you to reach your "goal" / what you where going for. + Have you or have you not reached your desired goal yet

    Asked by anon-267473 on 13 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 13 Nov 2020:

      I don’t think I ever had a certain goal, but different people chase different things. My science goal is to understand how stars shape the universe, but this is a huge thing to study so I will be happy if I find out cool new things that change the way people look at it. My personal goal is to find a more stable job in science – it’s been fun moving around so many countries, but it’s tiring and stops me doing long-term things like getting PhD students to work with on cool projects.

    • Photo: Roan Haggar

      Roan Haggar answered on 13 Nov 2020:

      I think a lot of people (including myself) don’t have an ultimate ‘goal’ that they’re aiming for. I’ve always found it more useful to set yourself lots of smaller goals.
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      I like to think about where I am in my life currently, and what I’d like to do next, and then set myself a goal to achieve that. For example, I recently had a conversation with someone which gave me an interesting idea for something new I’d like to research, so one of my current goals is to try to understand that better. Then, when I complete that, I can think about what my next goal will be.
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      It’s ok to not have a single goal in life, just do what you find interesting!

    • Photo: Daisy Shearer

      Daisy Shearer answered on 17 Nov 2020:

      I guess my ultimate goal is to do good research throughout my career so that won’t be achieved until I am much older. There isn’t anything specific that I want to achieve other than making a little contribution to knowledge to advance our knowledge of applied quantum physics. As far as shorter-term goals, my current big one is completing my PhD which I am halfway through! If things go to plan, this will take 2 more years and 4 in total.
      .
      I also have a goal at the moment of reaching lots of people online to share what it is like doing being an experimental physics researcher as well as lots of cool physics facts/concepts. This is going well as around 17,000 people follow my Instagram page (which I have been running for 2 years now almost exactly) and I talk to lots of them about my research regularly as well as reaching a few thousand unique visitors to my blog where I talk about physics and my PhD in more detail than on social media 😊

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