“As for Sahar, she’s amazing. She’s so loving and caring and she helps everyone. She adapts to teach people differently. If someone learns differently, she’ll show them practically; if someone’s struggling in class with the theory, she’ll bring them into the lab and show them how it’s applied.”
What’s your background?
I have a Bachelor of Science in Pathology from UWA, I graduated at the start of last year. I’ve been using my science degree to brew beer to help out with my family business. Before that I was an aquatics manager, and now I’m working full-time for a pharmaceutical lab as a laboratory technician. During the week I work in the lab and on weekends I brew beer. I brewed 2,500 litres over the weekend!
Why did you decide to study with LTT?
Everyone said they wanted more to do with calibration and maintenance, because there’s so much automation in labs now. They want you to do more of the hands-on stuff, like lab techs do.
Probably the biggest reason I chose LTT over anyone else doing the course is that you do it in 6 months. It costs about the same as if you did it in a year, but you’ve got a bit more flexibility.
How have you found the course?
Interesting. The lab stuff’s really good. Sahar’s really helpful, if you have any questions, you can just ask Sahar and she’ll go back through and explain it. There’s heaps of content - you get all the lecture slides, plus all the learner guides give you heaps of knowledge; there’s heaps of information. It’s pretty good for working around other commitments, like work (and for all the students who have families, they’re really cool with that). I got the job [in the pharmaceutical lab] a month and half ago, so I’m using all the stuff I’ve learnt there.
What are your career goals?
I always thought I’d work in pathology and haematology, that’s where I wanted to go (that’s what my bachelor’s in), but I’m actually really liking pharmaceutical research, which is what I do now.
So as a lab tech I work on all the different projects - it’s not just cleaning glassware, I do things like actually preparing and running the HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatography), and I got trained on HELOS, which is a nanoparticle analyser via laser (which is a machine worth like half a million!). So I’m doing heaps of cool research into that, and it’s being used for both commercial projects and things like anti-malaria drugs for kids in Africa, so that’s pretty cool.