Staying Informed: Why Keeping Up With Other Scientists' Work is Critical & How to Manage It
We all have our dreams of discovery, innovation, and improvement, and holding tight to these inner goals (no matter how "vague" they may seem at first) during undergraduate research careers is crucial to success in our field. Our personal experiences and passions are what shape us as scientists: what enable us to pursue unique research. So how do you refine your taste in research, come up with that award-winning, life-changing idea, or choose the right graduate school or job? You stay informed about what everyone else is doing.
Physics is a wide-sweeping subject that covers a massive body of research -- from biosensing to nanotechnology to volcanoes and black holes -- and it can be overwhelming to make a choice. Furthermore, I often hear my friends (and I have felt this way myself, many times) that "everything has already been done", and "what is there left to find in my field?" I can assure you, these feelings are typical of beginning physicists and if you are worrying about this at all, you have come to the right place. There will always be more to find, it's the name of the game, so don't worry about it! Coming up with an executable and and fundable hypothesis is difficult, but it will come to you more naturally as you become an expert in your field.
Aside of making choices about topics, it is important to stay informed due to the fact that most scientific fields move incredibly quickly. If you have a great new idea, the odds are that someone else in the world is not far behind. We don't want to spend time repeating things (necessarily) and we certainly don't want to lose the race, and thus we need to remain aware of all competitors so that we can build on their good ideas and beat them to the punch with ours!
So how do you stay informed when science journals are often expensive and exclusive? Easy -- open access journals. There are a huge list of journals on all matter of topics which are available online for free. To see a list, please click here and look around.
Image from Directory of Open Access Journals
I once read that if a person reads for one hour per day on a topic of choice for seven years he/she will become an expert on that topic. So what are you waiting for? Absolutely doable.
