• Question: At any point in your education (or even your work) did you feel like you wouldn't succeed in your project? Did you ever feel like you choose the wrong career?

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      Asked by anon-287315 on 15 Mar 2021.
      • Photo: Soneni Ndlovu

        Soneni Ndlovu answered on 15 Mar 2021:

        During my placement year, the first 3 months felt like I was failing at everything I was trying, I tried changing the conditions of my experiment but nothing worked. Since this was my first time of really researching something that ha not been done before, it was hard to come to terms with things not working out. Eventually, I understood that many things do not necessarily work out during research and that process actually made me realise I wanted to do research and that was how I made my decision to do a PhD.

      • Photo: Martin McCoustra

        Martin McCoustra answered on 15 Mar 2021:

        There are always time when you feel things aren’t working or going wrong. But you have to keep going and not give up. You can even learn from your mistakes.

      • Photo: Jesko Koehnke

        Jesko Koehnke answered on 15 Mar 2021:

        I do not know of anyone who does not have these doubts along the way. If you don’t you are either exceptionally luck or oblivious.
        If I feel like I am failing, I take a step back and analyse if I am actually failing or just feeling like I am. Then I decide how to improve either my performance or my mental state. If you “feel” like you are failing for no objective reason, you are setting yourself up to do so.

      • Photo: Nikita King

        Nikita King answered on 16 Mar 2021:

        There are times when you feel things are going right – just because you don’t succeed doesn’t mean you’re a failure though!
        When things don’t go right or when things do we work – we learn from both, and learning in itself is a success.

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