I am really starting to fear this questions from acquaintances. Generally you meet or get in touch with someone after a long time or are introduced to someone new and the topic inevitably turns to what you do. While its relatively easy to answer those also in research (who generally don't pursue after the generic questions) it gets difficult to answer those who are not.
This is usually how such a conversation with me would progress...
Person - "So what do you do?"
Me - *thinks oh no* "Umm research..."
Person -" oh "- *pause* - "so you are studying?"
Me - "well both study and work actually"
Person - "oh - what do you do for your work?"
Me - "Umm research..."
Person - "Oh on what area?"
Me - *tries the simple approach but with two possible responses - neither works!* - a) "electrical engineering etc" b) " magnetics etc"
Person in response to b) - " But you are in electrical department?" *description of research has to follow*
Person in response to either - "oh that sounds interesting. What is your research/thesis topic?"
Me - *interesting - really?? - oh no* "long name on thesis topic with unitelligible sounding words"
Person who got response a) at this juncture - "That doesn't sound like electrical engineering"
At this point I would really wish the person was no longer interested but some still persist.
Person - *blank look* "ok ... what do you do for it - can you explain some of it?"
Me - *Must I? I don't understand half of it* - "ummm .... let me see.... " * proceeds to some sort of description of work*
Person - "That sounds interesting" *changes topic*
Me - *sigh - now couldn't we have stopped at the first "interesting"?*
I know its nice to have people interested in what you do...but in this situation it does put me in an awkward position of not being able to state a profession and be instantly understood on what it is I do.
