• Question: Do you enjoy the work and why?

    Asked by helldawn to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi helldawn! 🙂

      Yup, I enjoy it… because

      1. A lot of the time, I get to work outside! Which I prefer to being stuck in the office (although I do that too!).

      2. I get to travel to new places for fieldwork (e.g. Loch Croispol in the very north of Scotland: ) or for conferences (e.g. Poitiers, in France: )

      3. I get to study animals and how they interact with each other… which I find really interesting!

      4. Finding out the answers to important questions is really exciting, especially if you’re the first person to do it!

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi helldawn 🙂

      I like my research work. I like studying animal behaviour and applying the maths skills I have to solve problems in ecology. I am still learning a lot about ecology (I never studied it as school or in my degree) and like finding out new things. I also like working with other scientists (mainly ecologists) to work on problems together. I also enjoy helping younger researchers become scientists – I supervise 6 PhD students and this is very satisfying!

      I also have to do teaching as part of my job – I enjoy this but sometimes it leaves me little time to do research!

      Sometimes I have to also do admin work in my department – I could happily stop doing that if I could – it takes up lots of time and is usually very dull and boring!

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