• Question: Are you good at persevering and if you gave up what did you do to overcome that?

    Asked by 826heak43 to Alex, Carmel, Kath, Sean, Steve, Valerie on 14 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Carmel Howe

      Carmel Howe answered on 14 Nov 2017:

      I am definitely good at persevering. Research is a lesson in failure and learning how to deal with set backs and keep on motivating yourself. I make it sound terrible but it really is amazing when experiments work

    • Photo: Valerie Bentivegna

      Valerie Bentivegna answered on 14 Nov 2017:

      I actually almost gave up on my current project, and it took me a week of hiking in the Highlands with friends to make the decision not to. Sometimes research is really tough, but the end results are worth it. As Carmel says, it’s really amazing when something works and when you can see the bigger picture (how your research can have a little bit of impact in changing things for the better).

    • Photo: Sean Doherty

      Sean Doherty answered on 14 Nov 2017:

      Giving up is often very appealing, especially early on monday morning! I try not too, if I tell myself i’m giving up it seems to wake up a competitive streak and then I get on with whatever it is again.

    • Photo: Alex Moldovan

      Alex Moldovan answered on 14 Nov 2017:

      Perseverance is one of my powers! It does get really hard sometimes!

    • Photo: Kathryn Thomas

      Kathryn Thomas answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      You can’t do this job if you give up easily. To get good at not giving up, you just have to practice and get good at being realistic. Some problems need sorting there and then, some problems need sorting tomorrow and some problems you just need to ask for help!

    • Photo: Stephen Lang

      Stephen Lang answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      I never give up! I had one project that lasted for over 7 years. Many times people tried to stop the development because of the time it took, but I pushed on until it was launched into production.

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