• Question: Do you ever regret things you've done as a scientist?

    Asked by food to Kylie, Matt, Bex, RobB, Sam on 13 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Matt Dunn

      Matt Dunn answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      All the time! If I could go back in time to the beginning of my PhD and tell myself how to do things right, I’d be able to get to where I am now in about 4 months, as opposed to 2 and a half years!

      But science is all about growth, and only by making mistakes and improving on them can you grow both as a character, but as a scientist.

    • Photo: Rebecca Thompson

      Rebecca Thompson answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      I don’t really regret anything I’ve done as a scientist.. I’ve made loads (and loads) of mistakes, but none of them really caused anything bad to happen and I learnt a lot from them, so they were totally worth it!

      I do a lot of teaching at the moment, and mostly I say ‘oh and don’t press that because something explodes’ or something. And people always say ‘How do you know that?!’. The answer is always ‘Because I made that mistake..’

    • Photo: Kylie Belchamber

      Kylie Belchamber answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I spend a lot of time on twitter, for an association that I help run (British Association for Lung Research). I have sometimes tweeted something that has angered some slightly crazy smokers rights groups, and I’ve regretting starting a twitter debate that I was not ready for! I learnt a lot that day.

      In the lab, I don’t regret what I have done, but as the others has said, looking back now, I could do things a lot better and a lot faster. But I needed to do them so that I could learn from those mistakes, so i don’t regret them 🙂

Comments