Saturday, February 23, 2013

Oh, the sometimes mindless drudgeries of experimental research

My research has taken on several interesting developments lately. As exciting as this is, the downside is it requires generating a lot of samples, and painstaking measurements on a lot of samples, which has been very time and energy consuming. On top of paper writing and all my other postdoctoral responsibilities, I'm swamped with work. I've recently recruited a graduate student to help me out on the measurement side, thankfully, as I'm not sure how I would manage otherwise.

As tough as it is, I know my project is (finally) building up to something interesting (and publishable). I remind myself that many scientific discoveries are likely not serendipitous eureka moments, but probably required a lot of planning, time and effort. And measurements. Long, slow, mind-numbingly boring measurements...

In experimental research, sometimes you can't avoid what feels like mindless drudgeries. This is why patience and dedication is such an important skill in graduate school. Also coffee. Also lab computers with internet access.

(Thank you, When In Academia)

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