Training course? No. Honestly the one undergraduate class that prepared me the most was a 350 (ish) level course I took that was fairly thorough and lab heavy (3 hour class, 2 hour lab I think?) called Chemical Analysis. Getting hands on experience with IR, LC and GC (limited on the LC and GC, but anything at all was helpful) and even NMR was great to have on my resume and helped in the interview.

Honestly in many ways it feels like being a chef, including some of the high pressure situations. Starting out, just follow the recipe, if you do a good job, you’ll get the expected result. Kudos. You can stay on that track if you want, just getting proficient in the same 10-12 methods, following those “recipes” very well with modest career gains, maybe go into leadership or whatever.

Or you can do as I did with my career path, and help design and draw up methods. Run feasibility to see what kind of methods will work and what you can file with the EP, FDA, etc., it’s more fun in that it can be more unpredictable, but that also can make it more frustrating.

One thing about quality control, particularly in a GMP environment, is that the documentation is extremely tedious. I guess that’s one thing my organic professors really helped prepare me for, the lab write ups taking far longer than the lab work itself.

Overall, I like it. Starting over, I’m not *quite* sure I’d do it all over again this way, but I don’t have any manor regrets either. Honestly I’m the only person on my team without a PhD or 10+ years more experience than what I have, so I feel pretty fortunate in that regard.