Question: When working in the science field are you always working at a desk or doing lots of different types of work?

Jean Bourke answered on 16 Nov 2012:

Depending on the area you go into you can do all sorts of work. There are scientist that spend all their time at their desks and scientist that spend nearly all their time in the lab. Most scientists do a mixture of both.

There are all sorts of things you can do: work making computer models, analysing data, looking at results, writing reports, writing scientific papers, making presentations, writing meals etc.

There lots of work to be done with machines such as Enda’s robot, as chemists we have NMR machines (giant magnet) to help us work out what we have made, you can use all sorts of machines. Sometimes a machine to do what you want doesn’t exist and you have to design and build one.

Labs are not all the same:there are computer labs where you use specialised scientific programs to do loads of different things; and wet labs where you can carry out experiments.

There are loads of different types of wet labs: electrochemistry labs (metals, solutions, salts, electrodes); physical chemistry labs (magnets, burning stuff, gases, surfaces, conductors); physics labs (I have no idea what goes on in these coz I’ve never been in one but I’m sure there’s loads of different types); organic chemistry labs (making natural products, medicines, catalysts, plastics etc.); biochemistry labs (cells and natural molecules); cell biology labs (working with living cells, growing them and seeing how they respond to things); microbiology labs (working with bacteria, parasites, viruses)….and many many more.

Often scientist work in different labs and use different machines and computers:I work in organic chemistry lab, test my compounds using machines in a physical chemistry lab, analyze their structure using some machines in various buildings, grow cells in a culture room, test what my compounds to to cells in a cell biology lab, analyze the results using specialised computer programs, and make presentations and write reports on my laptop.

Occasionally we can get to travel to different colleges, cities or countries and work with people and machines there (collaboration).

So there’s loads and loads of variety when you’re a scientist.