>These cost savings occurred by reducing the time to graduate for my grad students doing experimental work.
>When I was in grad school in the 1970s it was more of a "trial and error" approach to building my apparatus - which took a lot of time.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

I think that you point to an important aspect of academic lab culture. The cost in grad student time of the trial and error method approach could be an important reason for the stress and burnout associated with the graduate student experience in the 21st Century.

When I was an academic lab staff person and then graduate student in the 1980's, I provided and then relied upon technical support from permanent lab staff. In fact, in a conversation last week, our chemistry lab tech here reported that one of her student assistants told her that he had learned so much in working with her that he thought that every chemistry major should be required to be a assistant lab tech for a semester in order to graduate.

However, as described in the article at
https://www.chemistryworld.com/careers/the-unsung-heroes-of-the-lab/3009700.article
the career lab technician is becoming a rarer asset in academic labs.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
rstuartcih**At_Symbol_Here**me.com

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