• Question: What is the most difficult thing about your work? And why?

    Asked by Jessica109 to Ted, S. S., Laura, Kevin, Ellen, Andrea on 4 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Ted Burke

      Ted Burke answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      The biggest challenge in my work is helping students to adapt to the different style of learning they need in university. I teach a lot of engineering design classes to first years and we have to help them learn to depend less on the teacher and more on themselves to figure out how to get things working. Some people make the transition easily, but for other people it takes time to get used to the idea that when you’re building real engineering systems the teacher doesn’t have all the answers! It’s a challenge, but I really enjoy it too. My first-year engineering design module is one of my favourites.

    • Photo: Andrea Pacheco

      Andrea Pacheco answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      Every time I am on the way to solve a problem, two or more new ones will appear on the way. This is difficult because when you think you are about to finish, in reality you might need a couple of months of further work, but I take it as a challenge and there is a great feeling on facing and solving them.

    • Photo: Laura Farina

      Laura Farina answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      Every time you read or work with something new and you need to understand it. It is challenging but also exciting. In particular the medicine aspect is sometime really hard from and engineering poi of view. But it is also what makes this job so interesting!

    • Photo: S S

      S S answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      in my job one should be creative and at the same time be very precise .. and it is hard to be both at the same time … also you need to be very self confident … because you are creating something new that it was not tested before .. so you need to be able to convince other people that what you are doing and what you have created is worthy and useful and it works properly

    • Photo: Kevin OBrien

      Kevin OBrien answered on 5 Mar 2019: last edited 5 Mar 2019 5:10 pm

      The most difficult thing about my work is the politics and getting the necessary resources and assistance from other groups/departments to complete a task or project.
      Often, other groups have different priorities and may not have the time to assist on my project.
      Some negotiation is sometimes required to get the necessary help.

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