Question: what does a working day consist of?

Matthew Tomlinson answered on 12 Nov 2013:

Hi strawberry

My working starts at about 9:45am as I commute from Sheffield to Leeds after dropping my children off at school. The first thing I do is go through my emails to make sure there’s nothing I need to do urgently. After that I head into the lab and look after my cells or start some experiments, depending on what needs doing. That takes me to lunch. After lunch I usually do some paperwork, this involves writing in my lab book, writing papers or presentations, reading papers or ordering things for the lab. Then in the afternoon I head back into the lab and finish off my experiments for the day before heading home at about 6pm.

Of course there are so many untypical days where I’m in the lab all day or where I’m writing all day because I need to finish a paper. Also there are conferences and meetings which we have to go to that take up days at a time. It is a really varied job and no two days are really the same and that is one of the great things about it.

I hope that gives you some insight!