Instrumentation and college...

[DSP007]

What should know the lab? Everything.
What should know the docent? Which book is described
What should know the professor? In what room sits docent

[Greyhoundchrom]

It's interesting to see the responses from across the world. It's evident that the level of instrumentation 'hands-on' experience is determined by the level of education in that country. I was in Dubai recently and was approached by a charity, based in the UK, asking for instruments and equipment to be donated for sending to the developing world. The idea is that the charity will provide instruments, hopefully not too old! and some consumables, columns etc to get them working. I thought this was a very noble cause, in our developed world we are aware that there aren't enough instruments available - more support needed from the manufacturers? but then where does the training fit in? Learning on the job can't be beaten but we need an experienced person to pass the tricks of the trade on. We've 30 year's experience in the Chromatography business so lots of expertise to pass on http://www.greyhoundchrom.com

We also can't forget that our forums are great opportunities for learning - even around the water cooler

sue@greyhoundchrom.com
http://www.greyhoundchrom.com

[lmh]

The problem is only going to get worse, at least at the top-end of analysis. Modern equipment is so very expensive that it's impossible to buy for teaching purposes alone. Where it's bought for research, researchers tend to guard it jealously, concerned that if it's put out of action by students, their work will suffer. Ironically, in many universities, it's the researchers who tend to kill the equipment, because of lack of training.

Meanwhile a significant proportion of biologists who look for training in LC-MS and GC-MS are actually just CV-fillers with no real interest in the subject. They want a course that is as short as possible, justifying their claiming to be experts in an interview next week.

But these problems can be overcome. Perhaps we need to concentrate on making every biology or chemistry undergraduate properly aware of the wealth of analytical techniques available without doing them personally, by a combination of paper exercises and simple visits to the analytical lab for guided tours (after all, many will always, throughout their careers, rely on sending their samples to someone else for analysis, so paper-expertise is exactly what they will always need). Then we also offer a limited number of those students who show most talent and interest the chance to train in depth (really in depth). There's no point in having 1000 people who think they can do LC-MS but can't; it's better to have 50 who really really can, and 950 who know where to find someone who can, and know enough to ask them to do the right thing.

[Peter Apps]

lmh, I agree completely, and I would like to add that maybe we need to resurrect the elite technicians that used to be in the top-end laboratories. People who could run, maintain, troubleshoot and fix spohisticated scientific hardware far more effectively than any student or professor, but who lacked the mental defect that makes people want to do research.

Peter

[Axar]

I had no chance to work with modern instruments at my callege years in the state university. Univercity gave me much of theory and good links. My first supervizor taught me to think like a scientist and operator. I've learned to work on modern instruments only at my present lab, with help of more experienced workers.
Nowadays I think, that my study at university was not so necessary. I guess I might miss some of courses without any harm to my work.

[JI2002]

I agree that the purpose of education is to teach the students how to think and learn instead of giving them a career training. We all come to this forum to learn from each other, but there are times that people can't ask the right question or don't know where to look for answers when confronted with problems.

[ChemSam]

I have a very specified background in chemistry/biochemistry. In undergrad, I never saw anything more complex than a UV-Spec. I had internships that introduced me to GC, GC/MS, LC, LC/MS, among other techniques.

In grad school, I was never introduced face-to-face to any type of equipment unless I had to use it for my research project. We did get an in-depth analytical background to many techniques in a theoretical setting.

All of this was in the southern US....

I have taught high school in the past and my colleagues and I at that time made sure we toured local college campuses and local businesses to have the students be able to "see" the instruments and a few chemical techniques. In addition there are many online resources to simulate instrumentation for education purposes that are routinely utilized.

Something else that has come up in the last two years, Technical Programs being designed to train high school graduates how to run analytical instruments. I'm now in the sales arena, but as a past educator, I've been invited to help in some aspects with the development of a new program. This means to me that the "Job Market" is narrowing even more. IF jobs that used to be available only to BS degreed candidates are now being offered to HS grads - WOW!

[tlahren]

Things have changed. I now get copious school visits from students bearing stuff they've made, and accompanied by teachers keen to prove they've made the right thing. It's a good step. I blame CSI for much of it.

At the moment I'm not totally convinced analytical chemistry should be taught in isolation. I haven't been impressed by the level of knowledge of the few I've met who've trained as pure analytical chemists. But perhaps I've been unlucky.

As a newer trained analytical chemist (MS degree) I can attest that you are correct about your final statement. I've met a whole bunch of extremely great analytical chemists and elite technical experts as Peter Apps stated. The one thing that they have in common is that they are all either retired or close to retirement. I found my education in graduate school rather lacking as the instructors were too busy teaching 10 sections of general chemistry and put off the advanced analytical courses. As a result I was not able to take a graduate chromatography. I got in analytical spectroscopy and mass spectrometry as well as 2 semesters of graduate Organic sythesis (worthless to my field). These were the only courses offered. The analytical classes were only offered every other year.

My advisor (a new commer chromatography/MS expert to the university) was just starting to build her analytical empire and had just receive an Agilent LC/TOF and a 6890/5873 system. This was all we really had in our department for analytical equipment.

I tried my best to study chromatography through other sources (mostly online and through other experts) and learned as much about "theoretical" analytical chemistry as I could. I learned more about practical GC/MS in my first 6 months at my first job than I did in about 3 years in grad school (although the theoretical knowledge helps a lot) as I was forced to learn it and make it work mostly on my own.

Long story short, I agree that there is going to be a great need for highly skilled analytical chemists/technicians in the future as they are slowly disappearing (I don't consider myself to be one but I hope to be some day). This education must start at or before the unversity level.

[MaryCarson]

We said goodbye to our summer interns today. I thought I had a nice little defined IC-ICP-MS project lined up, so I took on an intern this year. She had ICP-OES experience, which was as close a match of background to project as I was likely to see. Well for one reason and another, the planned project didn't happen, so instead my working-towards-a-masters-in-chemistry intern got to do some LC-MS/MS. It turns out she'd never done either chromatography or mass spectrometry. This summer she learned about IC, then got to do both RP and HILIC, while at the same time learning and doing some MS, all on a system that was only a year old. Admittedly, I was sitting next to her for most of her instrument facetime. But, hey, that was pretty much what someone did for me for my first weeks back in grad school, and even as a post-doc.

Turns out she didn't mind at all not doing the original planned project. Her thesis advisor didn't have either LC or MS; my intern thought there might be an LC in another professor's lab. This is a university in the southern U.S.....

BTW, my intern was really sharp and picked up on theory and technique right away. I hope the right opportunities come her way and she continues in chemistry. She has the makings of a great analytical chemist.

[Karen01]

And for computing power. We got to punch data onto punchcards and run the program (in FORTRAN IV) at the computer center - which had the computer in this nice, large air conditioned room because of the heat it generated. Cards in the hopper - printout on greenbar paper - and if it did not work, you took the paper and figured out what was missing in the middle.

Just saw this.

I remember all that! I actually took a course in FORTRAN that used FORTRAN IV and just such a setup!

From when I was in school (1970's) to to day all of the equipment I had my hands on has become obsolete. The underlying theory remains the same. Chromatography is all about partitioning - to this day. Capillary has changed chromatography dramatically - and made the interface with a mass spec practial. IR - the bands are made by the same stretches, wiggles, and wags in the molecule -- and at the same wave number. The FTIR was never heard of - the laser did not exist and the computations were far beyond what we could do.

You are a bit misstaken in the FTIR stuff.. In the mid 70's I was using an FTIR made by DIGILAB which used a Data General NOVA computer with front pannel switches that had to be booted off of punched tape! Of course that was on a CO-OP job (worked half the year and in school the other half in a 5 year BS program) working for the Army at a research center. Besides the FT calculation and signal averaging it could subtract spectra!!! I have NO idea what it cost back then, but in today's dollars I suspect quite a LOT!!! It was probably one of the first commercial instruments.

CO-OP taught me a lot while still in school. I did a lot of IR, thermal analysis and some GPC work while there. Learning theory in class and then having to apply it outside of academia while still in school helped a lot.

- Karen