The price of a failed experiment
Research is not straightforward, but its ups and downs will teach you a lot
It was snowy afternoon in January 2015, and I was going home after a chemistry tutoring session in Bucharest, Romania. Just before I entered the underground station, I received a call: I had received a scholarship to start my PhD at the University of Manchester, UK that September. Of course, I was excited about the chance of doing research every day. Naïvely, I thought I would have plenty of results. Little did I know that in pursuing the unknown there are many things that do not work.