• Question: Have you made any mistakes, have you learnt from them, and do you think you could make them again?

    Asked by IAmInFactAPickle to Andrew, Hina, Ian, Kathryn, Leah-Nani, Xu on 14 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Kathryn Burrows

      Kathryn Burrows answered on 14 Jun 2018:


      I often make mistakes, they are part of trying new things and learning. Nobody likes to make mistakes but often they do not matter as much as we think. One thing I don’t like to do is make the same mistake twice! Though sometimes also this cannot be helped. When doing maths or coding I make little mistakes as I am going along, as you learn more you get better at making less mistakes but you also end up doing more complex work so little mistakes can creep in. One of the things you learn is the important of testing/checking. You think to your self if the results and the steps involved seem reasonable. It can take more time testing then it does creating code sometimes but it is well worth the effort.

    • Photo: Leah-Nani Alconcel

      Leah-Nani Alconcel answered on 15 Jun 2018:


      Lots of mistakes, yes. I like to think I have learnt from them. I don’t think you can ever be perfectly sure you won’t make the same mistake again, but hopefully, knowing that you’ve done it helps you to avoid it the next time.

    • Photo: Andrew Margetts-Kelly

      Andrew Margetts-Kelly answered on 19 Jun 2018:


      I’ve made loads of mistakes, I hope I learned well enough to avoid ever making the same mistake again. I’m only more experienced as an engineer than some of my colleagues because I’ve already made the mistakes they haven’t.

      Someone dear to me once said that:
      “It doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make, just so long as you don’t make the same one twice!”

      I went trampolining the other day, 8 weeks ago I broken both my ankles trampolining, I guess some lessons we don’t learn.

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