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Asked by danrumford to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 14 Jun 2011.
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Pamela Lithgow answered on 14 Jun 2011:
hmmmm…..this is a tough one. I think it would probably have to be when I had to stand up to my boss quite early on in my PhD studies. What I was doing was not working and I had checked with other people and their things were not working either so something was wrong with the cells we were using. But I had to prove what was going on so that I could try and do something different to get around the problem.
Now I am further on in my career I think I would be able to handle this more easily but at the time it was a very difficult situation to deal with.
Other than that I think my hardest moment is yet to come. I have to do a “viva” which is like a spoken test when I finish my PhD I will be doing this soon and I think it will be the hardest moment in my life let alone my career!
Hope that answers your question
Pam
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Cat O'Connor answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Hi again Dan,
Good question…..you’re full of them! I’ve had a lot of very hard moments in my career and at the time it totally felt like they were the worst. Firstly every university exam I ever took was deadly, i don’t perform very well in tests so I really struggled with them. I will not lie to you, there were a couple of repeats!
In recent years the hardest moment has been when I was presenting my research at a conference. After you finish speaking, they normally give 5minutes to let the audience ask you questions about your work. This is really daunting because the audience can be full of people who are much more experienced scientists than you are. Normally the audience can be really friendly, but every now and again you get one person who is only asking a question so that they can say something and sometimes they can be quite nasty. I’ve never cried during one of these question sessions but I have come quite close!
I think like Pam too, I’m really dreading my PhD viva which is going to be so hard but I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it!!
Hope this helps,
Cat
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Darren Braddick answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Hi Dan
Good answers by Pam and Cat there. Well, I think many times you believe sometime which no-one else does – sometimes you are right and sometimes not. That can be difficult, especially in a hostile or at least a competitive environment. I think on that basis, the hardest moment would be convincing others of a finding you have, whether it it be to individuals or during big talks and presentations. You just have to be brave and believe in what you have done. In seriousness though, I’ve found issues outside of work to be hard and some of the hardest – like nightmare landlords** or problems with housing and friends/family. Those things are usually harder than anything work throws up I have to say!
I hope that helps 🙂
Daz
**these guys are common like 2 pence pieces…..
Comments
danrumford commented on :
Thanks for all your help and good luck to those who have ‘vivas’ to do at the end of your PHD’s. Do you have to do a viva for all Phd courses?
Pamela commented on :
I think you do have to do vivas for all PhD (the other scientist may prove me wrong :S) I have never heard of a science PhD that doesn’t do a viva.
Cat commented on :
Yup, you sure do, but depending on who is your examiner, they can be very chilled out or super stressful! Some Masters courses also make you do like a mini viva as well. And even in my final year of Uni we had a little viva of sorts just before we got our final degree results. Thankfully mine was very relaxed as I had two of my nicest lecturers doing it and they spent most of the twenty minutes we had giving me career advice!
danrumford commented on :
how long is the university course for microbiology?