• Question: What is the most challenging part of your job?

    Asked by Charis to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 13 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by philip.
    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Waking up in the morning. Joking aside, I love my job, and although I face a lot of challenges I try to see them as puzzles and obstacles that I have to solve and get around.

      Normally the main problem is actually making sure that I choose the right technique to analyse my products. These techniques tend ot be expensive so it is really important to ensure that I use the best technology available in order to get the best results.

    • Photo: Rebecca Ingle

      Rebecca Ingle answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Sometimes it can take a lot of a patience to make sure you’re doing experiments properly, that you’ve though of everything and you can be confident in your results. It can mean spending a lot of time making sure the experiment is working well which can feel very unproductive, especially when there’s a lot of pressure to be constantly publishing new work.

      Intellectually, thinking up clever new problems or ways to tackle existing ones and tying together the analysis and results to make a coherent, strong story for what happens to a molecule can be really difficult as you constantly have to look for weaknesses in your line of reasoning or see if you’re replying on assumptions that aren’t necessarily as certain as you’d like them to be!

    • Photo: Laura Schofield

      Laura Schofield answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      For me the most challenging part is looking at results that are complicated and confusing and making sense of them! When you do a PhD, you become an expert in your field (which is awesome! Imagine knowing more than everyone else in the world about something!) but it does mean that when you get stuck you can’t go to someone else and ask for help. Chances are they have their own problems and won’t have a clue what you are talking about.

    • Photo: Francesca Palombo

      Francesca Palombo answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      I think it’s keeping up with many deadlines on various different tasks. The rest is pure scientific enjoyment!

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      I think the most challenging part of my job is teaching students – students ask questions you wouldn’t believe, and they really challenge the limits of your own understanding – in a good way of course! It is this challenge that pushes me to become better, to learn more and, ultimately, to teach our students better.

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