• Question: What does a scientist do on a day to day basis?

    Asked by anon-267534 on 11 Nov 2020. This question was also asked by anon-270584.
    • Photo: Bradley Young

      Bradley Young answered on 11 Nov 2020: last edited 11 Nov 2020 3:56 pm

      Lots of scientists can do lots of different things depending what they’re researching. Most of us have a ‘my typical day section’ written in our profiles on here which you can find by clicking on ‘meet the scientists’. I’ll copy mine in here, but there are some pictures to go with it on my profile:
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      I try to get in to the lab before 9 so that I can leave a bit early for my evening plans like hockey training or a music rehearsal. I spend most of my time on our equipment collecting data about my alloys or analysing the data I’ve collected. The data analysis is really important to make sure that I can present my work so that other people can understand it and contribute ideas.
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      I will spend a couple of hours most days listening to lectures to improve my knowledge and my work as well as learning about other people’s work so that I stay up-to-date and we can all give each other ideas. Despite everyone working on their own project, we collaborate a lot.
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      About once a fortnight I have to present the work that I’ve been doing and all the things I’ve found out. I spend a couple of hours a week doing workshops as part of the University outreach programme to engage people in materials science and potentially help with their University applications.

    • Photo: Liza Sazonova

      Liza Sazonova answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      There are lots of things that most scientists have to do that are common, regardless of your field of research. We go to talks by other scientists, meet up over coffee to talk about each other’s ideas, participate in workshops and events. A lot of scientists do outreach: visit schools and talk to students like you. All this stuff can actually take up about half of your work time!
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      When I’m not doing that, I work on my computer, because I’m an astronomer not a physicists. I look at images of galaxies I get from telescopes up in space, and measure things using code. It’s pretty cool! I alternate coding and tea breaks with my friends 🙂
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      When you come to work is usually up to you, especially if you don’t have to go into any lab. I’m a night owl, so I often work from like 11 until 6-7 pm. But other people work differently, it’s up to you! Sometimes (or nowadays, all the time) I work from home or even travel somewhere and work from there, because everything I need is on my laptop. I really like this flexibility 🙂

    • Photo: Daisy Shearer

      Daisy Shearer answered on 12 Nov 2020:

      It depends on what kind of scientist you are. Day-to-day for a theorist looks very different to a day for an experimentalist like me. You can check out everyone’s profiles and read the ‘my typical day’ section to see how much it varies (mine has some cool pictures of our labs and a few videos to give you a better feel for what my days look like). Some things that I think every scientist does most days are: answer emails, read papers about research in their field, analyse data, and write up their results.

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