In Research, “Do what interests you the most” and “Stay curious”

In Research, “Do what interests you the most” and “Stay curious”

I do a few interviews, and a common question that I get asked is the advice I would give to my younger self. My typical answer is “to believe in your approach, and don’t let negative people distract you”. Overall, that approach has kinda worked for me, and where our spin-outs have gone on to become so successful. If I had listened to doubters, we would have never had gone anywhere.

But, I am lucky, and I know I am. I love teaching, and I love doing research. That’s my job in a nutshell. And, the one thing I learnt in my career, is that you have got to love your subject, too. This is at the core of my work, and that I deeply love the subject that I teach and research into.

I have thus never regretted a single second of my teaching work. Okay, I would have done different things for my research, such as publishing more papers and focusing more on maths, but I’m happy overall to be where I am in my teaching and research. Overall, I have a foundation of work that I’ve completed, and it helps me advance my current work. If I was to retire tomorrow, I would be happy in what I had achieved, and actually have a foundation to take forward, if I wanted too.

And, so, today, I read this, and I cannot find a more concise definition of what it takes to be a researcher:

And, out-the-box, it has everything I have ended up doing:

• Study hard. We perhaps live in a Wikipedia-driven world of knowledge, and are often driven by superficial learning, and where fewer people actually have a strong understanding of the key principles involved in anything. Luckily, academia still holds on to the belief that you must train your brain to learn new things. So, even so I’m a professor, I still study hard.
• What others think of you is none of your business. I must smile at this one. In my early career, I did worry what others thought of my work, but, now, I care more about doing good work, and supporting students. Some things will succeed and others will fail. Some people will not like what you do, but other will. And so you can never win. But, if you care enough, you will always find the best way for your students.
• It’s OK not to have all the answers. If I knew all the answers, my learning would be finished, and that would be sad. I am motivated in learning new things, and each new thing brings new areas of learning. You need to feed your brain, in order to live a healthy life.
• Experiment, Fail, Learn and Repeat. On a daily basis, I do this. I sit and study maths, and then code. It often doesn’t work, but I stick at it, and in the end, it works, and your reward is that you have filled another gap in your knowledge.
• Knowledge comes from experience. I cannot underestimate this one. I teach things to my students, and when they ask me questions, I can often answer them. The main thing is that I now have the experience to understand the true scope of what I teach, and I can now present it in a coherent way, and know all of the associated things.
• Imagination is important. In research, you must always try to look at the here-and-now, and try to project into the future. Knowing the current boundaries of technology and science is key to understanding in how research can shape a better future. I’ve never switched off my imagination, and every barrier that I face, is another barrier to overcome.
• Do what interests you the most. This is the advice I’d give to my younger self. As a teacher and a research, you MUST do what you love, otherwise you are doing it for the wrong reason.
• Stay curious. You never know what new topic or research paper you will read tomorrow, so be ready.

Go be a great teacher to someone … it’s the best “job” anyone can have …