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:
