• Question: What had been the greatest mistake/failure you've made so far in your career? How did you overcome it?

    Asked by 10jlam to Dominic, Maedeh, Matthew, Matt, Monica on 7 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Monica Rozeik

      Monica Rozeik answered on 7 Mar 2016:

      Hmm..I think there’s been a few mistakes over the years! There was a time I broke an expensive bit of equipment and had to wait until it got repaired which slowed down my work.

      We try to add extra time to our projects in case things like that happen…because mistakes and setbacks often happen in research! It feels horrible at the time but you just learn and move on.

    • Photo: Matthew Oldfield

      Matthew Oldfield answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      I once spent a very long time designing an experiment and waiting for it to be produced. As soon as the parts arrived, we assembled them, and set the motor running. It broke almost straight away and I then had to perform a re-design and then wait ages (again) for it to be produced. It was also quite expensive to have to make the equipment twice instead of once. As usual, the time wasted was more of a problem than the financial cost. As with most mistakes, I learned from it and won’t design a part with such sharp corners in the future as that is where the damage started.

      There have also been many times when I have spent hours and even days with computer programs that don’t work. Sometimes the mistake has been a comma in a wrong place or something equally small. It is so incredibly frustrating! Perseverance is often the only solution and working methodically through the code will eventually reveal the problem. Asking a colleague with more experience or a fresh perspective can help to show where the error is too.

      I can’t think of anything devastating that I’ve done. Hopefully that isn’t tempting fate!

    • Photo: Dominic Eggbeer

      Dominic Eggbeer answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      I don’t think I’ve made any superbly large blunders, but like Matt O, I’ve found grammatical errors in publications I’ve produced after they’ve gone to press (that’s annoying if you’re an academic type!). I have broken bits of expensive equipment, but have always managed to fix them.

      I suppose a great mistake could be not looking after my own CV routinely. I get carried away with doing and don’t reflect on how it may/may not help my career sometimes. I’m addressing that now.

    • Photo: Maedeh Borhani

      Maedeh Borhani answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      I don’t think I ‘ve made any huge mistake, but like others I had a lot of setbacks during data collections. One of the biggest blunder of my whole life was sending a very private email to my supervisour by mistake.

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