• Question: Have you been given any good advice over your career that you think has helped you? What is it and who gave it to you?

    Asked by danrumford to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 15 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Johnson Soronnadi

      Johnson Soronnadi answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi danrumford,

      Yes, my father will always tell me to aim high in my career and let the sky be my limit. He said if I want to enjoy my life on this earth I should follow my mind and do what I really love to do and what interest me most. I should not yield pressure, because everyone or friends seems to be doing same. I should be determined to succeed and motivate myself even when things seem to be falling apart. In whatever profession you chose to do, work hard to get to the top and hope one you will be at the control. This has been my motivating force towards becoming a scientist today and I still remember those words today. MD- Motivation and determination. Also, my manager (the youngest manager in my hospital) once told me never give up, because things that go around always come around. He never believed he will be a manager so soon.

      Hope this answers your question?

      Feel free to ask for more.

      Johnson.

    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi Danrumford,
      Your full of great questions!!
      I had a lecturer at university and he didn’t really give me any advice but what he said was…”have you ever thought about doing a PhD? I think you think in the right way to do a PhD”. The truth is until he said that I had never even considered doing a PhD. From that comment I started to think about doing a PhD as an option and realised it was for me. So you are probably way ahead of where I was even when I was at university because I hadn’t thought about this stuff.
      Another thing I got told is “there is no such thing as a stupid question”…..to be honest I think there is (I have had a few on here!) but generally when you are a junior scientist worried about making a fool out of yourself you should have more confidence because there is probably plenty of other people who want to ask the same thing.
      Finally the head of post graduate studies at my institute told us something on our first day on our PhD he said “By the end of your PhD you will be an expert in your field. Your field may only be the size of a small window box but you will be the world expert in it”. This might sound silly but it is very very true, I am the only person that knows as much about my specific area of study in the whole world. That can make you feel good and more confident about what you are doing.
      I have a few more things to add which are not really advice but they are quotes and I think they are really good
      “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without loss of enthusiasm” This is a useful thing if you are going to go into science as more often than not things don’t work and we have to try and work out why!
      “The happy we become with being stupid the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to discover something new”
      Sorry for such a long answer but I hope it helps.
      Thanks
      Pam
      🙂

    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi Dan,

      I hope you are working this on your other subjects too! If so you’ll be a great microbiologist some day very soon!

      I’ve had so many good pieces of advice! At the time you might shrug it off and say ‘whatever’ but when you think about it a couple of years down the line, you realise how important they were!

      I think the single most important piece of advice came when I was just 12. My science teacher at the time, Mr Raymond, stood in front of the class and said “Girls (I went to an all girls school), remember this one thing. There is no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid answers. Keep asking questions until you are able to give smart answers!”. I think that is some pretty awesome advice don’t you? This guy is the reason why I became a Scientist!

      Another bit of advice came in the summer after my first year of Uni when I had to make a choice of what i wanted to specialise in. I was living with two girls at the time who were a year ahead of me in a wee house in Surrey because we were working as plant scientists. One night I was really bothered about what subjects to choose and they sat me down and said “Cat, choose you’re favourite subjects, not the ones you think you’ll get a job in easily. You can go any where and do anything with a science degree, so just work on getting a good grade and you’ll get the best grade in a subject you love”. Another very sound piece of advice! It’s why I studied Microbiology and that degree has allowed me to get where I am today working as a veterinary epidemiologist!

      And i think one of the best pieces of advice came from my parents and it runs through not just in life but also in my career and it was “Go for it, the worst you can do is fail! And only idiots are afraid of failure”. I still don’t like failure but I know now to shrug it off and move on with something else if it happens.

      Do you think these are good pieces of advice?

      Cat

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