Submitted by Catherine Atkins on Wed, 02/08/2023 - 12:01
The first Early Cancer institute work experience week took place from 24th-28th July 2023. The opportunity was offered to school students of school year 10 and above to enable them to experience working life in our various labs.
Candidates were asked to apply with a CV and a covering letter outlining why they wished to undertake work experience in the Early Cancer Institute.
During the week, the students rotated between most of the labs in the Institute and gained hands-on experience in a wide range of tasks such as preparing genes for sequencing, splitting cell cultures, preparing slides from a paraffin block, looking at tissue under a microscope, computational work with large datasets and lots of pipetting! They also spent time with the lab management team and sat in on a meeting discussing a publication.
The feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive. One of them commented, “It was extremely informative and also worth the time. You learn a lot about things you don’t come across at school and the everyone is so lovely.”
One pleasant surprise that the students expressed was that there was such a good gender balance in the Early Cancer Institute which they weren’t expecting.
But the positive benefits were not one-directional. The researchers who worked with the students also reported gaining a great deal from the experience, saying: “It is very inspiring to pass on knowledge to the next generation of students. It is very rewarding when they are so curious to learn, you wish you could teach them even more.”
We would like to thank everyone involved in the week for making it such a success!