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Asked by xnykkix to Jamie, Jodie, Kat, Mark, Niamh on 14 Mar 2011 in Categories: General.
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Katherine Davies answered on 11 Mar 2011:
Hi
I love the variety and relative freedom. Where I conduct my own research, if I can get the money to do it, I can do anything that I see fit and that will help the forensics field.
I never do the same thing from one day to the next, and working with insects always throws up challenges and we often get more questions than answers. I have a very inquisitive mind, so love a puzzle! Its also nice to know that you are finding out information that no one else knows, its not from a text book.
Personally, I wouldnt like to sit in a lab or at a desk all day doing the same thing over and over again.
Kat
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Jamie Pringle answered on 11 Mar 2011:
I think it is probably that it is really varied, I can do something completely different from one day to the next. Interesting to read that Kat says the same thing! As an example, today I was surveying my test pig site with some undergraduates, tomorrow I will be doing an open day for prosepctive first year undergraduates and their parents and next week Im going off to scope out a forensics ‘job’.
I have had a few jobs now but being a Lecturer is, in my view, the best one for me! I think I would be bored if I did the same thing day after day.
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Mark Hill answered on 12 Mar 2011:
Hi,
If you have to go to work for about a third of your life, then it really helps if you enjoy your work. It somehow seems less like a chore.Even after over 27 years of this, I really enjoy arriving at a chaotic, crash scene, with bits of debris, bent vehicles and emergency vehicles everywhere. I start my examination of the scene, sometimes whilst the fire crews are still cutting people out of their vehicles, but then it is important for me to gather the evidence before it is possibly destroyed, or altered. Firemen have big boots and tyre prints on grass verges are easily spoiled!
Once everyone has left, I can then start a more thorough examination and start to make sense of the earlier chaos. When I can turn around to people and explain what has happened, how it happened and, usually, why, then I am satisfied. Sometimes, I have to wait until I am back at the office, in the lab, and sometimes on the internet researching, to find the answers. I cannot always come up with ‘the’ answer, but certainly the most likely answers, or causation factors. Sometimes they are physical and mechanical, other times they may be medical, and more so now, I am looking into the psychological factors – why a driver was behaving as they were. That is a really interesting area and is often not considered. I then write a report, which I present in court, or inquest.
As you can tell, my work is a mixture of adrenaline rushes – ‘blues and twos’ to the scene, working within a ‘live scene’, and the somwhat quieter ‘slow time’ enquiries – examinations and research. It is all interesting and makes the day go really quickly.
One thing that is not so pleasant is the phone call from the police control room, at 3am in the morning, when I am called out, in the rain, in the cold. Even so, when I am at the scene, that seems to be mainly forgotten and I soon get into the investigation and start to enjoy my work again.
Thank you for your question.
Mark
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Niamh Nic Daeid answered on 14 Mar 2011:
Mainly the variety. No two days are ever the same even though some things are planned for the day. Today I’ll be teaching, marking essays, talking to my a couple of my research students to see how things are going, working on a research paper and so on. The variety in the work that I do is great.
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Jodie Dunnett answered on 14 Mar 2011:
Getting to meet lots of new people and working in a discipline that is constantly changing – it never gets boring!
Comments
xnykkix commented on :
thankyou for your answers:)