• Question: do you have holidays or r u very consertraited on ur work?

    Asked by lucy to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 12 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Heather Campbell

      Heather Campbell answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I love holidays! I get to travel to some very cool places for work, either for meetings or using telescopes so I always try to take holiday there afterward to see the place. I went to a summer school in China while doing my PhD and took holiday afterwards, walked on the great wall of China, was very cool. This year I went observing in Chile and then took a weeks holiday, saw penguine, walked in the mountains, it was great fun.
      I think if you work solidly without any time off you burn out, then you are not productive in your research. So holidays are essential!

    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I went to a meeting in Switzerland. We worked in the morning, went skiing all afternoon, then more work in the evening!
      Then I take regular holidays too.

    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      We definitely have holidays 🙂 We often travel for work, and you can extend the trip to have a holiday afterwards, and do some exploring. My friend in the office took a week off in Hawaii after using the telescopes there! This summer I went to Chile with my PhD supervisor to collect data (hardly ‘work’ really) then came back and went straight to the US with my family. Hard life, aye?

    • Photo: Jane MacArthur

      Jane MacArthur answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I think including university closures over Christmas/Easter we have up to 40 days holiday a year as PhD students which is a lot more than in most other jobs. Research does tend to be a bit more of ‘lifestyle’ job – occasionally on a quiet weekend we may be tempted to do some reading, or when you’ve just nearly got your experiment working at 5.30pm you don’t mind staying til 6 or 7pm. However, the flexibility works both ways, as if you need a morning off, or you want to work midday-8pm instead of 9-5pm, your schedule is pretty much up to you (subject to labs, equipment, meetings).
      Office jobs may (sometimes) allow you to put work down and forget it for the night at 6pm, but many have long hours cultures with no flexibility, and most are a lot less interesting, from my past experience of the business world.
      I’ve done a lot of travelling and holidays in the last couple of years – often adding a weeks holiday to a summer school or conference like the others (which is cheap to do as your travel has already been paid).

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