• Question: Do you sometimes feel like giving up and just can't work through something, but you keep on trying?

    Asked by Alex & Havar to Jake, James, Pete, Senga, Simonne on 8 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Jake Langham

      Jake Langham answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Yep, definitely. I find my work really difficult sometimes. Actually – I feel a bit like that right now – I’ve been trying most of this whole year to get one of my projects to work and it just won’t. Argh! But I’m going to keep trying because I’m pretty sure it is a good idea and I’ll be able to make some good discoveries eventually.

    • Photo: Senga Robertson

      Senga Robertson answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Hi Alex & Havar

      That’s a really good question and very well thought out!

      In science a lot of the time the things you try don’t work the 1st time, sometimes not even the 5th time! That can be pretty frustrating and it’s tempting to give up at times BUT I think about ways I can try to make the experiment work, or work out why something I think should work isn’t and then I keep on trying…so far every time I have kept on trying eventually I’ve ended up with really exciting results.

      Actually it’s funny, a lady I work with had an experiment that has been going wrong for weeks and today it worked…she actually did a really funny dance to celebrate whilst she was in the lab. It was hilarious but I was so happy for her!

      Bottom line…if you keep trying hard you will eventually get results……and that applies to everything you do in life, not just science.

      Senga 🙂

    • Photo: Simonne Weeks

      Simonne Weeks answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      Great question. Yes, absolutely. Sometimes the challenge is to remember that not everything goes the way you expect too. Therefore the trick is think of news of tackling a problem and this helps me not give up.

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