Being a scientist was never my dream as a kid, however nowadays I cannot see myself doing anything else. Science is my life and is something that I truly love. I have decided to write this text to show the difficulties and also the advantages of being a scientist. I hope some scientists can relate and people outside this field can better comprehend our work.

One of the biggest issues of being a scientist is that mostly no one understands what you do and what is the finality of your work. The reality is that we work with such specific things that other people don’t understand or don’t care to. I think this is in part our fault since we cannot put in simple terms what we do.

Another thing that people don’t generally understand is that a PhD or a higher graduation, providing it’s financed, is a job. People keep asking me: “Are you going to study even more? But do you even earn money?” The truth is, in our field we can never stop studying because science is not a stage thing. Another question is “Do you really see yourself work all day in a lab?” Whenever my answer is yes, I see people’s eyes saying “That one is crazy”. I am not made to stand in front of a desk all day and do the same thing every day like a machine.

Being a scientist is not a normal job. You may have entry type, but you don’t have exit one. No one pays you more because you had to finish an experience and you had to stay until 10 pm. No one pays you more because you had to go to the lab during the weekend because the machine that you needed is always occupied. No one pays you more if you don’t have time to have a lunch hour.

As a scientist you live of scholarships or founds, except people that follow a more industrial field. It’s not easy to get a scholarship, especially in Portugal where the demand is high but the availability low. Fortunately I got the opportunity of getting one. I was so happy to finally come back to Portugal and being able to do the thing that I love the most in my country. When I came back everyone asked why, why would I come back if there are more opportunities in other countries? The answer is that it is a big pleasure for me to contribute to the scientific development of my own country.

However, to get this scholarship, I had to work hard. I worked so much during my thesis and even did volunteer work in a lab afterwards, just so that I could have more experience. People criticized me because I did volunteer in a lab, now they criticize because I have a scholarship. People said I was lowering myself accepting a job without payment and now they say the value of my scholarship is too high. I don’t regret anything and it’s a pleasure to be paid to do what I like the most.

Being a scientist is not easy but is the most rewarding thing for me. I am able to discover new things and that is what I love the most about my job. The unknown is what drives me.