Question: what do you were when you work

Keith Brain answered on 15 Jun 2010:

I’m going to cheat for this one and copy/paste “my typical day”. I wrote it the first time, honest!

“A typical day involves a mix of teaching, research and administration (not necessarily in that order!). After dropping the children at school, I come to work on a train, when I might read a research paper and make some notes. At the University, I might spend an hour talking with a small group (15) of medical students about how to treat high blood pressure, followed by a one-to-one meeting with one of the research students in my lab, discussing their work, what they’ve done, what they intend to do, and why! In the early afternoon, I might work at writing a research paper, usually sitting at a computer; these research papers are one very important way that we communicate our experiments and ideas to other scientists my. I’ll have to cross-reference a lot of the work of others, and I can’t remember it all, so I’ll have to refer to sets of notes I’ve made and go back to the original descriptions of work. Later, I might work on a grant application; these grant are needed to fund our experimental work. This involves some thinking about science, but a lot of work like contacting suppliers for quotes, seeking approval from the University to use some special equipment, seeking ethical review and approval, and hence plenty of paperwork. At the end of the day, I get to go home for bed time … reading stories to or with our 2 children! Other days I might dedicate entirely to doing experiments, or setting and marking exam papers; so, every day is different.