Work Studies Counting for Experience

[nkolstate96]

Hey everyone,
So my school offers work-study programs to mostly the Honors students, and it's a 4-year deal that pays 1500 a semester.
I picked a lab job. I work in lab-prep for the intro bio program, and the extent of my job involves prepping solutions, washing/drying tubes, etc.
I'm pre-med, and I feel like this job is a waste of 10 hours a week of my time. I'm not learning anything about medicine, and I would rather volunteer or work for something mroe involved in my future career.

With that said, I heard people say that undergrad-research is good to have. Does this lab job count? Should I look elsewhere for experience that suits my future career in medicine best?

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[differentiating]

If you're washing glassware/prepping solutions for a lab course, it doesn't sound like research to me, since you're not doing any hypothesis-driven testing; it's just a job.

If you want to get involved in research, it's usually best to contact faculty who have labs in your field of interest and see if they have any openings for undergraduate research assistants.

 

[Boolean]

This is not research.

 

[SnakeOilForSale]

This doesn't count as research but it isn't a bad job to have on your resume. If you enjoy it and it's a relaxed sort of job, nothing wrong with doing it for the money.

 

[efle]

I feel you nkolstate96. Since freshman year I've been working 10-12hr/week as a technician in the bio dept of my uni. Basically, we'd get samples from someone doing a research project, and I'd prep the samples and do microscopy analysis (ppl usually want confocal and TEM analysis) and then hand off the images and what I observed to the PI. I never got to do any real hypothesis generating and testing, so I knew it wasn't going to look as good as the real research-for-credits my friends were doing, but I needed the $$, it was interesting work, and I didn't have time to do both. If you can afford not to do it, and don't see it getting you an awesome letter of rec or something, then I would suggest you spend those hours doing true research instead.