Question: How long have you studied for?

Nathan Langford answered on 25 Jun 2012:

Hi lewis55 and brendan999,

In terms of formal education, I was technically a student for just over 23 years, starting with primary school in 1984, then high school, undergraduate and honours university degrees, and finishing my PhD in 2007. Now I’m sure you’re probably thinking “how on earth could you stand being a student for 23 years? Weren’t you sick of it by the end?” And if I spent that entire time being the same sort of student, then the answer would definitely been yes. For example, high school was okay, but I was sure sick of it by the end and was definitely glad to be moving on to university.

The thing is, at each new stage of “studying”, it becomes a bit different. At high school, teachers set homework and mark it and get upset if you don’t hand it in. At university, however, they expect you to take more responsibility. They set exams and assignments to assess what you’ve learnt, but they don’t really mind exactly how you go about learning yourself. But again, by the time I finished my undergraduate and honours degrees, I was completely sick of exams and studying for them. But that was okay, because when I got to my PhD, I didn’t have to do any more exams. There was lots of learning and the learning part was still fun – I just didn’t have to worry about someone writing an exam for me.

So if you continue along with your studies, you find that it becomes less and less like “being a student” and more and more like “having a job”. In my PhD, I went to “work” every day (well, Monday to Friday) and generally had my weekends to play sport and music and see friends, etc. And while working times are generally pretty flexible during a PhD, I generally found it helpful to get up at a “normal” time to be at work at about 9am and often left for home around 5pm. So it was almost exactly like a job – it just happened to be a job where I loved what I was doing… and mainly, what I was doing was learning.

And that’s the great thing about being a scientist – you never have to stop learning. So, while I’ve had a “proper job” (as a researcher in a university) for about 5 years, I’ve still been learning – and I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of learning. It provides such a challenge and also an enormous feeling of accomplishment when you manage to work something difficult out that you didn’t understand before, especially if you also manage to work out how to put your new ideas into practice to do something useful. I feel very lucky to have a job where I have the freedom to follow my curiosity and discover new things.

Cheers,
Nathan.