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Asked by here1sky on 19 Mar 2024. This question was also asked by gets1sewn.
Question: what is the hardest obstacle you had to overcome and how did you do it?
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Viviene Dela Cruz answered on 19 Mar 2024:
It was my belief that I am not cut for science and engineering. I was told by lots of people I’m not meant for engineering and I started to believe them. I studying engineering anyway and got a scientist job and I’m slowly replacing the faulty belief that I’m not cut for STEM by doing work that is cool and looking for other cool projects. I also try to be kind to myself and my family and friends are the best support I could get, which helped me get over that obstacle! 🙂
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Mark Ridgill answered on 27 Mar 2024:
I didn’t do well at A level , which made my journey into science harder. I got a job as a science technician and studied part time.
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Mahmud Juned answered on 26 Apr 2024:
I’ve been permanently kicked out of school before, and studied a masters in chemical engineering, but I still think one of the hardest things I’ve had to overcome is people. There are so many different people you will will come across, throughout school, university, work. Some will help you along the way and some you might not get along with. Some may have a good influence on your work and some may want to be a bad influence.
The advice for something like this, is to go out your way to talk to people from an early age, to practice networking. Having some customer service and sales skills are such a vital skill to maneuver your way around the work place. Sometimes, it’s not about the work you do but the people around it that can determine whether you enjoy what you do for a living. Having the skills to be able to deal with people will help you be able to successfully enjoy doing what you love!
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Sarah-Jane Potts answered on 22 May 2024:
I have faced a few in life. I used to struggle with maths and science when I was younger, but due to a fantastic tacher at GCSE, was able to find my passion for them and worked to get my grades up. During my undergraduate degree, I was the only woman on my course and didn’t feel like I belonged there at first, but by the end I had made some amazing friends and graduated the top of my course.
My hardest one to date was my doctorate project, which I really struggled with for the first year or so. However, with the support and guidence of my course mates, supervisors and other colleauges, I was able to not only finish my doctoal theses, but create a completely new technique which I designed, made and used to conduct my experiments. I still use this new piece of equipment in my current work on printable solar panels to improve their performance. The main thing I learnt was to not be afraid to ask for help, and to provide support to others in turn. I also learnt not be afraid of failure, as it can sometimes provide an opportunity to learn and do better in the future. It took multiple attempts to design my final experiments, but I learnt something valuable on evey one of them.
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Michael Schubert answered on 27 Jun 2024:
I had a very difficult time in graduate school – not because the work was too hard, but for other reasons. (I went to school in a place that was very different to my home, where I knew no one, and where the working environment was not great.) Although I loved the work I was doing, I realised that I didn’t want to be in academia for the rest of my life, and my advisors (who were very academic) didn’t really know or care about any other kinds of science jobs. Eventually, it was hard for me to motivate myself because I didn’t know what I was working toward.
I was very lucky to discover science communication, get some early work in the area, and figure out that it’s what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It wasn’t easy, but it gave me a goal I understood and a reason to keep working and learning. Finding the field I wanted to work in made a lot of difficult things easier and more worthwhile – and I love what I do!
Comments
katiespencer commented on :
Starting my PhD just as the pandemic hit a few months later. It was extremely difficult to navigate being a new PhD student as the university shut down and all my plans were affected – on top of general stress and anxiety about covid! I had to persevere and just focus on each day at a time rather than thinking long term and about everything that was going wrong. Having a good community of people around me really helped.
Clare commented on :
I wasn’t very well during my PhD (a research degree) so I had to have a year off and study part time. It would have been really easy to give up and I’m really proud that I completed it! Getting that degree has enabled me to do my current job which I (mostly!) love.