• Question: Have you ever felt like giving up on research when you could not seem to be able to make progress? And if so, did you keep at it?

    Asked by babybel to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi babybel,

      Yeah – I think all researchers have those moments when nothing seems to go right. I’ve found myself down a few blind alleys where I have had to give up. But usually it’s a case of going back to the drawing board and working out what was wrong with the initial question I was trying to answer, and working out how to change the question so the research leads to useful results.

      Sometimes the wisest course of action is to admit defeat. But then that’s what science is all about – you come up with an idea. You test it. And if it doesn’t work, you go back to the original idea and change it.

    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I’ve had that problem recently actually.
      But I want to finish my PhD so I have to keep at it! I hope that after my holiday I’ll come back with next enthusiasm and motivation, do loads of work, and enough of it will work out that I can write my thesis and get my degree. It’s gonna be tough, but I should be able to manage it…

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Ba-ba-ba-ba-babybel…..

      On the principle of Robert the Bruce and the spider I presume?

      No I haven’t because you always have so many different things on the go at once that even when one thing seems to hit a dead-end anothe seems to be taking off. I’ve only really done 4 years proper science though so it would be fairer to let the old dogs chew on this question-bone….

    • Photo: Emma Pilgrim

      Emma Pilgrim answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hello

      I did feel like leaving research after doing my PhD as I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I worked for a conservation charity for a while, Plantife, who try to conserve wild flowers. My reason for taking the job is that I wanted to promote the importnace of plant conservation to the public and why it is important that we don’t destroy all the wildlife around us. During this time though I realised that I missed research and so took the job I currently have. Moving to Devon was also a bonus!

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi babybel again! Many a time, when I was researching my dissertation because there was so many obstacles and I was doing some research in an area of air pollution sampling that had only be done (unsuccessfully) by a few people – no challenge there then!

      Happily, I finished the research and got my Masters degree which enabled me to get into the job I do now!:)

Comments