Chemical Forums
General Forums => Generic Discussion => Topic started by: OddDuck99 on December 19, 2020, 11:41:47 AM
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(before reading this: my mother language is Dutch, as such I do not know what the right words for the education system are in english)
Good day to you all,
I am writing this post regarding the following situation:
As of writing this I am in my last year to become a chemistry lab technician, however I have doubts regarding if I am ready for this.
Right now I am doing a intern at a pharmaceutical lab but it is not going so well, my lab manager and at the same time my coach (am Dutch so dont know how to say this otherwise) says that I can do the work, but for some reason it is not coming out of me, which results in sloppy work, and a lot of stress.
To be honest I do not think that I have enough theoretical or practical to really do the job of lab technician well, and because I do not want to deliver bad work I decided to ask my questions here, in the hope that you guys/girls perhaps know what I can do.
To combat my theoretical knowledge gap I have the idea to study my school books, is this wise or should I perhaps increase it with other books?
Regarding my practical knowledge problem I dont really know what I could do, yeah I have to try to do my best and pay attention at work but I wonder if perhaps there are resources/books that I can read to increase my practical knowledge so books about communicating well or making a good schedule for the day, is this wise or foolish?
thanks for reading this post, if there any questions please leave them in the comments below.
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The question now is what you really want to hear or to know.
In Neatherlands I think the education at school and university is very good like everywhere in the EU.
Tell us what help you need, what are the problems.
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What I need is some guidelines on how I am going to improve so that by the end of this school/college year I am pretty sure that I am able to perform the job of Lab technician.
The thing that is the most frustating for me is the fact that I always make little mistakes here and there, then I forgot to completly fill in a lab report by forgetting to sign a signature, or forgetting to number all the pages. Last week my lab manager called me regarding the daily density meter of the lab, it is something which I have checked almost every week for 4 days (1 day per week school) it turned out that for the whole period I did not correctly fill in a part of the daily format.
These things I describe are small, sure but as a lab technician in its final year I am pretty sure I should not make these mistakes as a lab technician is supposed to be accurate and precise, which I apparently am not
Another thing that bothers me is that most of the times I dont know what I am doing, if somebody would ask me right now what pH is, what a acid or base exactly is and how you can know what ph something is then I am afrai that I cannot explain it fully, my knowledge is just too low.
I want to be a good employee and do my work right but if it continues like this I am not certain that I will be a good employee or something else.
Those are the main issues I have, and I have to improve these things, but I dont know how exactly.
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The number of books on practical chemistry is less than one might wish it to be. Nevertheless, if we knew broadly in which area of chemistry you worked, we might be able to suggest things.
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From what you wrote I feel like you may get a better answer from a psychologist than from chemists.
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You cant learn about practical technique from books. You learn from doing. If you're only just graduating, you only just starting to learn. You'll master it soon enough.
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To be honest, its really an shortfall of management and peer workers, if you've been filling paperwork incorrectly, repeatedly for a several days, and they only noticed later. The person who showed you the first time should have checked the first time you did it alone. Everyone's work should be reviewed each time, and then, a the end of the month (possibly, they could also do this quarterly or annually) all reviews should be re-reviewed, and paperwork prepared for archiving. Also, rules of good laboratory practice are implemented differently everywhere, but there are solutions that can be done after the fact.