• Question: at work, what is your daily routine?

    Asked by jamaica2001 to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 15 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      I drive the kids into school, then go to the lab, and drink so much coffee that my head is spinning round in circles till it’s time to go home…

      Only joking.

      I spend my days doing the following things:
      – advising students who are trying to get their Ph.D’s about the best experiments
      – writing papers and things to publish
      – trying to get new people to come and join the lab
      – judging other peoples’ results to see if they’re sound enough to publish

      and

      – travelling around the place telling people about my lab’s results.

      Do you notice the thing that’s missing? I don’t go into the microscope room and look at moving cells any more. Which is a great shame. I love microscopes. Maybe if I win this thing I’ll go and show a bunch of schools what you can see down a microscope.

    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Right now I am writing my PhD thesis.
      Which means my daily routine is to sit down at the computer to write, check my emails, try to focus on writing. Remember a thing I need to look up. Do an online literature search for one hour. Check my email. Check the wheather forecast, my favourite cartoon site and a random wikipedia article. Try to focus on writing. 🙂
      You see what the point is: wrinting is really boring and I don’t like it!

      When I am in the lab, I do lots of different things. Usually I start by getting my computer going and having a cup of tea. Then I do experiments with my cells, or analyse results from previous experiments and try to understand what they mean. Every day is different, because I do many different types of experiments.

    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      My days can be quite varied, it just depends! Most days, as soon as I get up I check my emails. A bit sad probably but then I know if there are any surprises lurking in my inbox! When I get to work, it’s usually back to the email (I get a lot: 40 a day sometimes… 🙁 ) and urgent responses (everything else can wait!) then meetings if I have them, or catching up with my PhD students, marking of student work, and thinking and planning research, which usually involves reading papers. Sometimes I have to teach a class, so I have to make sure I’m prepared for that. The thing I don’t often get to do is actually go to the lab and do experiments any more. As a university lecturer, I get to think about and help plan experiments, but not often do them myself any more. Mind you, I had a good 11 years working in the lab before my current job and once you get to where I am and have to be the boss, time in the lab is one of the sacrifices. It’s still worth it though because i get to see my PhD developing as researchers which makes it worthwhile!

    • Photo: Mariana Campos

      Mariana Campos answered on 16 Nov 2012:

      Hello Jamaica2001,
      I am a PhD student so I get to spend most of my time in the bench.
      Usually I wake up, come the institute, have coffee and check my emails.
      Somedays I have meetings, usually early in the morning.
      I go and check if my flies are fine, I give them new food if they need. I dissect the maggots sometimes. And I look it down in the microscope. Some other days I work with cells in Petri dishes.
      It really varies a lot.
      I write down what I have done and I read a lot to have ideas for new experiments and to learn techniques that I don’t know.
      In the end of the day I go home, dancing or to Pilates classes.
      If it’s Friday I go to the pub with my colleagues
      That’s my day.

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