• Question: Is there a downside to being a scientist? If so, what is it?

    Asked by SmolDream to Stéphane, Matt, Gemma, David on 12 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: David Howard

      David Howard answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      After completing a PhD you typically will work on projects for other people that last two or three years. At the end of each project another one to work on and this may mean you have to move around a lot and means some uncertainty. As a scientist you also have to apply for grants which will allow you to conduct your own research. These are really tough to get and it can be a frustrating process.

    • Photo: Stéphane Berneau

      Stéphane Berneau answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      For me, the downside of being a scientist is the reason why we are a scientist. We love our projects like children: we create them, we make them grow and hope to see them fly. We are emotionally involved in our research.
      The social life is quite often damaged by our behaviour toward work. We all work a lot as scientists and the only metrics that prove that you are good is by publishing (sadly).

    • Photo: Gemma Chandratillake

      Gemma Chandratillake answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      Like David and Stephane, I agree that the current career path to being a scientist in academia is really tough. There is a lot of hard work and also a lot of luck involved in “making it” to the point of leading your own research team, if that is your goal. There are plenty of other roles and careers for scientists though, so don’t be put off by that!
      Living in different places, and moving around is part of the career but can be a positive opportunity depending on how you view it; I loved living in Seattle for my PhD, and San Francisco for my postdoc, and scientists can get visas to work in different countries relatively easily. These early stages of the career (until your mid-30s) are also not usually paid that well so it can be a very long, relatively poor journey as compared to that of your university peers who go into other careers.
      I have had a more convoluted career than that of the straight academic scientist though as I have worked in industry too and now work between academia and the NHS (with input to/from charities and industry too). A lot of applied rather than basic science work is done in industry. In industry, my science moved very quickly as I had more resources; it was very exciting, and I was very well paid (but then I did work for a start-up in Silicon Valley!). The downside was that I couldn’t always discuss openly what I was doing i.e. there can be less external recognition for your work but, on the other hand, I found it a more collaborative and less competitive environment than academia. I also learnt a lot of new skills to add to my experimentalist skill set which I now use daily in my public sector work.
      It is important to realise that not all science is done by academic scientists in universities. There is the science that is asking basic questions to understanding the natural world around us which can be quite abstract. There is also the refining of basic science into actual applications – at some point this meets engineering and technology. The application of the scientific method is not restricted to universities or any area of interest in particular; anyone can ask questions about anything, make observations, come up with hypotheses, test them, and refute them – that’s science.
      One big problem that I think exists for the academic scientific community is how science is published, recognised and funded; there are fashions and politics just as in other aspects of life, and sometimes undue credit is given to those who shout loudest (James Watson versus Rosalind Franklin), and amazing innovative science is overlooked for many years e.g. Gregor Mendel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel).

Comments