Research Assistant at Hanoi University of Science and Technology
I used to think that doing research meant wearing a lab coat and standing next to machines that go beep-beep.
No one warned me that most of my time wouldn’t be spent inside the lab — but buried under… hundreds of PDFs and Excel spreadsheets.”
The title “research assistant” sounded prestigious — until I learned that my first real task was simply: read – categorize – annotate – organize.
I remember thinking to myself, “I didn’t come here to hold a computer mouse. I came here to hold a pipette.”
But one afternoon, after tracing back more than 20 papers just to figure out why a research group chose pH 7.4 instead of 7.2 for their antibody-coating process, it suddenly hit me:
Science doesn’t begin with experiments — it begins with precise questions.
And precise questions only appear when you truly understand what others have done before you.
I also learned something unexpected: paperwork isn’t the boring part of science.
It’s more like archaeology — you dig through layers of data just to uncover a tiny detail that could completely change your experimental design.
Since that day, whenever I’m staring at a dry spreadsheet, I no longer feel exhausted.
Because I know that behind every number lies the sweat of dozens of scientists.
And I — fortunately — am entering their world, through the pages before I ever step into the lab.