Cienciaes.com: I want to be a researcher. We spoke with Joaquín C. García

2016-11-08 12:36:30

I want to be a researcher. We spoke with Joaquín C. García

Ordinary citizens sometimes see researchers as beings from another world. Sometimes we idealize them, others we look at them with suspicion, there are even those who put them at the focus of their anger and brand them as malevolent minds almost always determined to end our peaceful universe. The reality is very different and we are seeing it in the many Talking with Scientists programs. Researchers are ordinary people, with their greatness and misery, like any of us, experts in a very specific field of knowledge that they have reached after much effort, great desire and overcoming many obstacles.

Today we ask ourselves this question: what do you have to do to become a researcher? Our guest, Joaquín Calixto García Martínez, professor and researcher at the UCLM Faculty of Pharmacy helps us find answers.

To investigate, says the dictionary of the RAE, is “to investigate to discover something.” Said like this, a researcher or researcher can be anyone who is curious about a fact and seeks explanations for it. This meaning is too generic, so I look for other definitions. The third meaning of the dictionary reads as follows: “to carry out intellectual and experimental activities in a systematic way with the purpose of increasing knowledge about a certain subject.” This already brings us a little closer to our idea of ​​the scientific researcher that we are used to interviewing on this program.

Once the descriptions of the term have been made, questions arise: What does it take to become a researcher? Do you have to be a person out of the ordinary, a “genius” with exceptional intellectual abilities? Is special preparation necessary?

There is no single path to become a researcher, in fact, it is an “unclear” path, as explained by Joaquín Calixto García Martínez, professor of Organic Chemistry and researcher at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Castilla-La Mancha. However, there are attitudes that help along the way, among them, enthusiasm for the field of study and the desire to reach the goal as a researcher.

We spend a large part of our lives making decisions that allow us to choose certain paths and discard others. The path of the researcher begins in the secondary studies stage, which is when one chooses between subjects more closely linked to science or letters, both with their own research options. Then comes the choice of a university degree, during which opportunities may arise that allow us to choose options that bring us closer to the objective. But it is after finishing these studies, when the tortuous path of the researcher really begins, with the completion of the doctoral thesis.

Joaquín C. García reviews the keys to a good thesis project that allow it to be successful, the successes and mistakes that are usually made, especially during the last year. He then talks about the decisions involved in seeking a postdoctoral stay and the keys to success at this stage.
Today’s conversation fulfills two objectives, on the one hand, to make known the difficulties that the life of the researcher has and, on the other, to inform and advise those who have chosen the difficult, but rewarding, path of scientific research.

I invite you to listen to Joaquín Calixto García Martínez, professor of Organic Chemistry and researcher at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Castilla-La Mancha