Lab Technician 

(Female, Age 23) from Orange, NY

This is a REAL-LIFE job profile written by a Female aged 23 who works as a Lab Technician in Orange, NY. We have removed all names and personal information in order to protect privacy. This professional kindly spent a bit of their time to complete one of our job profile surveys so that prospective job seekers like you could read their insights. Please excuse any punctuation or grammatical errors in this profile.

At a Glance

Current Job

Basic data on your current job

Job Title Lab Technician
Salary $30,000
Other Compensation None Set
Hours/Week 40
Company Size (not answered)
Location Orange, NY
Years Experience 3 months

Career Ratings

Opinions on your CAREER overall (i.e. not just your current job)

Years in Career 0
Education (not answered)
Income Rating 0 / 10
Interest Rating 0 / 10
Work-Life Rating 0 / 10
Fulfilment Rating 0 / 10

Current job Q&A

Describe the type of organization you work for.
work under a research group at UCI in the integrated nanosystems research facility. microfabricate novel devices for medicinal and industrial purposes, group consists of mainly phd students and post docs.

Describe your job role and responsibilities.
lithography- exposing and developing photoresist, help with research projects

Please list an additional benefits (beyond compensation) that you receive.
vacation is accrued through hours of work, usually 1 day vacation a month and 1sick day a month, health net health insurance

Do you feel you are under/over or well/fairly compensated at your current position?
well

Does your job entail you working with others on a daily basis? Is this something you like/dislike about your job? Please explain.
yes this is a team work /group job. i work closely with grad students and post docs and other clean room staff everyday. environment is very friendly and everyone is nice, not as uptight as you would imagine for clean room workers.

Do you work collaboratively with supervisors/managers?
Yes

Do you work collaboratively with your co-workers?
Yes

Describe your work location (e.g., office, home, theatre, in the field) and what you like/dislike about working in it.
i work mainly in the clean room. one thing i dislike about clean room is the gowning process everytime we come into the clean room, but that is standard procedure. what i like about it is that there are cool operating machines to use and a computer room for when you have down time, like waiting for something for heat.

Please rate each of the following aspects of your current job on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest/best):
Income: 4
Benefits: 6
Hours: 5
Co-Workers: 2
Supervisors: 3
Job Title: 8
Level of Responsibility: 7
The Actual Work: 1

A day in the life of…

Please describe a typical workday for you in your current job:

5am to 6am
6am to 7am
7am to 8am
8am to 9am
9am to 10am arrive at work, check email on computer, go to lab
10am to 11am check samples made yesterday to see if it is ready to process (because samples need be left overnight to dissolve), samples were not ready so mix them and add more of dissolvent
11am to 12pm go down to clean room to work on project with the samples, heat up the samples to evaporate and dry them out
12pm to 1pm check to see if samples have evaporated, try to heat press (used to make the surface even)a sample, heat press is not working, use trial and error to figure out how to work it
1pm to 2pm lunch break
2pm to 3pm go back to lab upstairs, discuss with project manager with how the project is coming along, discuss concerns and problems during the project and try to come up with a solution to it together
3pm to 4pm continue processing sample on hotplate, find a dark room to do it in because light exposure would ruin the samples, move the hotplate to the dark room
4pm to 5pm after samples are dry, heat press the samples upstairs in the lab with the lights off, document and record everything in lab notebook, go home
5pm to 6pm
6pm to 7pm
7pm to 8pm
8pm to 9pm
9pm to 10pm
10pm to 11pm
11pm to 12am

Table of Contents

How you got your job

How did you get your current job?
internet on the uci website

What was the application process?
submitted resume

Did you have to interview for your current job? If yes, what did the interview process entail?
yes there was in interview with the lab manager and clean room manager. it was a one on one interview and in a very relaxed atmosphere. interview was about 30 minutes where they explain the job requirements and ask you about yourself and background. you don’t have to be an engineer major to apply for this job because I was a biology major and still got hired for the job, it was mainly impression and personality. the rest can be trained later.

If you can remember, what questions were you asked during the interview?
are you good with your hands? are you good with time handling? what would you do when you have time in between experiments? what other lab work have you done? what experiments have you worked on, and were they sucessful? if not, how did you try to fix it? what do you expect out of your work environment?

Do you feel your employer properly prepared you for your job? Explain.
yes, everyday for the first two months i worked side by side with the lab manager and he made sure I knew how to do the process before letting me go off on my own to do things. also, if i was unsure on how to do something, then i could always ask him.

Was there training for your current position? If yes, what did it entail?
yes. the lab manager showed me all the lithography processes and went over the steps of how to do them.

Do you feel your educational background prepared you for your job? Explain.
no because my educational background was in biology and this is microfabrication.

If applicable, do you feel your internship experience helped you prepare for your job?
no

If someone wanted to go about getting a job similar to yours, what would you recommend for him or her to do?
go onto the uci website and look for its jobs listing, there are different categories

What skills do you think a person should have if they want to pursue a position like yours?
be a hard work, be crafty and good with your hands,

Do you feel that you need a certain level of education or training to be successful in your job?
preferrably have a BS degree

What advice would you give to someone who was about to start work in your position/ line of work?
plan out time wisely to do projects because there are a lot of time in between where you can do something else while waiting,

Long-term career plans

Is your current employment part of your overall career plan? Why or why not?
no because i plan to go back to grad school in the health field, and engineering does nothing to help me better prepare for that

What are your current career goals?
apply and go to grad school

Is there anything else you would like to share about your career?
no

Prior work history

Please list your most recent jobs prior to this current job:

Title Length Salary Description
Prior Job 1 lab assistant/intern 1 year $15/hr perform microbiological techniques on experiments: PCR, vector cloning, protein purification, MIC assays, clean glassware and autoclave
Prior Job 2

Educational background

Please list your educational background:

High School GPA:4.2

GPA School Degree
College (Undergraduate)
or Technical/Vocational
3.2 UCSD biology/cell biology
Graduate or Professional
(Masters or Doctorate)

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