Question: do you enjoy life as a scientist ? is it fun?

Carl Peter Robinson answered on 7 Feb 2024:

Generally, in terms of being a scientist, yes! I like being exposed to the latest research that other people are doing, getting to read about their theories and experiments. It’s also very rewarding taking an idea that we come up with in the lab and putting it through a scientific process to determine if the idea can become a reality. That means doing research, performing experiments, analysing results, discussing and presenting outcomes to colleagues or clients. It’s even more fun if I get the chance to play with some new machine learning model or cool piece of technology!

The less fun part can be doing the write-up, if it’s a difficult idea, concept, or piece of research to communicate to others. But even that can be fun at times, formatting documents with results and images that best explain the work we did, and finally writing that paragraph that helps others understand what they need to about the work.

In terms of my current job, it’s fun for the most part, as long as there are interesting AI-related projects to do and time allocated to research activity. But, because the bottom line in business is “making money”, there isn’t always that luxury and we sometimes have to do projects that can be rather dull, but do make the company money. That’s something worth bearing in mind if you’re thinking of becoming a scientist. Make sure to ask questions about the companies you think about working for, to make sure they’re a good fit for you and what you want to do with your career.