What is a piece of advice you wish you knew before entering the science sector?

Question: What is a piece of advice you wish you knew before entering the science sector?
- Keywords:
  advice,
  career,
  knowledge
Asked by fear499had on 30 Apr 2024.
- Alan Koh answered on 30 Apr 2024:
  
  Love what you are doing. That is the most important piece of advice.
- Michael C Macey answered on 30 Apr 2024:
  
  The importance of rest and self-care – I love my work and last year I threw myself into it, but it ended up making me sick. I could have had a slightly less productive year and not been ill, and I think taking time to take care of yourself is important when you are working in science.
- Emma Weir answered on 30 Apr 2024:
  
  You don’t have to want to be a professor!
  At a university the top level job for most scientists is to become a professor, which takes a long time and a lot of work. You can work in hundreds of different jobs after studying science, you don’t just have to follow a set pathway.
- Zoe Vance answered on 7 May 2024:
  
  I wish I’d known how critical it is to ask questions and communicate with others. I feel like these aren’t really skills you pick up in school or uni when you’re mostly studying and sitting exams alone and expected to sink or swim on your own individual ability, but they’re so important when working in science! I always felt early on that I should be able to tough it out myself and teach myself everything I needed to know and otherwise I was just bothering people. But truthfully there’s nothing to be gained in struggling with something for weeks at a time and it’s brutally inefficient besides. You need to learn how to problem solve, but you don’t need to learn to suffer! Plus asking other people’s opinions gives you a point of view you wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.