# I can has career guidance? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 19, 2012, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424 "2012-05-19T14:28:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/41 "2012-05-20T18:49:10Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > I second this suggestion, if you’re scientifically inclined. > > In the US, you can do either a two-year or a four-year degree. In general you get the same work for less pay with a two-year degree, but some places won’t let you do quality control, or move up to supervisory positions, unless you’ve got the full degree. > > LabCorp and Quest will give you more people contact, because they cross-train techs to take vital signs and to do front-desk work. I applied for a job at LabCorp and turned it down for that reason. In a hospital lab these days, you’ll rarely encounter a _patient_ directly, but you _will_ deal with nurses and doctors over the phone, many of whom can be pushy and mean. You’re under pressure to deliver results quickly, no matter which machine is currently on the fritz, so it can be a stressful job, depending on the hospital, the shift, and the type of patients. So, there’s still a risk of needing anger management classes - I was having trouble near the end of my last hospital job, because of management and staffing issues. > > But: it’s pretty good pay. You can work part time on weird shifts. There’s a **lot** of demand for new techs because the workforce is aging and nearing retirement. It’s important work, and fulfilling. With your librarian skills, you could easily get involved in lab computer systems, document control, and quality - fields within the lab world that are growing as hospital labs work towards better efficiency. I personally love the work and want to get back into a hospital lab once I get a good handle on Quality Assurance and can move back in that capacity. > > If you’ve got questions about being a med tech, please PM me anytime. I’ve also got a lot of [posts on my blog](http://antijenicdrift.blogspot.com/search/label/lab) about med tech stuff, if you want to do some reading and ask questions there. Your blog is really interesting! Really, this thread is so much better than I expected - I hadn’t even thought about medical lab stuff, and now I’m giving it serious consideration. I’m sort of put off by the idea that they’d probably try to make me take Psych 10fucking1 and assorted other stupid classes, though. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/42 "2012-05-20T19:51:42Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Your blog is really interesting! Really, this thread is so much better than I expected - I hadn’t even thought about medical lab stuff, and now I’m giving it serious consideration. I’m sort of put off by the idea that they’d probably try to make me take Psych 10fucking1 and assorted other stupid classes, though. Thanks! It’s worth contacting the school and getting more information on the program. If you do the MLT (medical laboratory technician) program, generally two years, you can start work right away and then work on upgrading to the MLS (medical laboratory scientist) degree through online or part-time classes and such. ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/43 "2012-05-20T23:59:29Z")
Didn’t you take all those stupid other classes already while earning your bachelors and masters? I had to take them for my associates and UConn accepted them as direct transfers so I don’t have to take them again for my bachelors (thank god). I don’t think I could have handled taking Intro to Psych or Intro to Soc again (however the 200 level classes I took as electives were actually interesting and thought provoking). ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/44 "2012-05-21T00:07:49Z")
Are there Law Libraries in your area? University/private school libraries? Medical Libraries? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/45 "2012-05-21T00:25:57Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Are there Law Libraries in your area? > University/private school libraries? > Medical Libraries? Yes, but nobody is hiring librarians. Also, there’s a library school pumping them out locally. Of course, in five years who knows? **congodwarf** , yes, but don’t your college credits get too old at some point? Plus, my original degree is VERY liberal arts with emphasis on “anything but science and math”, so I didn’t take things other people may have taken like Psych 101. Also I AP’ed out of a lot of things like lit classes, so I don’t know if they count those or not (and I am NOT, after seven years as a public librarian, taking motherfucking Intro English Comp. NOT.) I guess I’d just have to sit down with my transcripts and talk to somebody to find out exactly what’s required for me to get any specific degree - perhaps I could do it in two years, perhaps I’d have to CLEP a bunch of stuff, take some bullshit classes online maybe, I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Q.N.Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3da27b/32.png) [@Q.N.Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.N.Jones)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/46 "2012-05-21T00:36:15Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Paralegal sounds like more education to just do the crappiest parts of librarianship - dealing with clients who may or may not be upset, not to mention furious or stupid, etc. - I think I could do better as an administrative assistant for no extra work. I’m not sure where you’re getting your ideas about what it’s like to be a paralegal. The paralegals I worked at had little to no contact with clients. I’m sure some paralegals do, but many don’t. (As an attorney, I _did_ have contact with clients and I never encountered one who was furious OR stupid, and I worked with both the wealthy, the poor, and in between.) I’m not sure what the “crappiest parts of librarianship” are to you. The ones I worked with did a variety of things that boiled down to “assist attorneys on all aspects of litigation” (I was a litigator). That included preparing and formatting documents, legal research, and assisting with trial work (recording documents revealed in discovery, coding and preparing exhibits for presentation at trial, sitting at the trial and presenting said items for the attorneys as needed). Some attorneys are certainly not easy to work for. However, many law firms are pleasant work environments. However, it is worth noting that legal administrative assistants who are highly skilled are also able to distinguish themselves and command relatively high pay. Some of their duties will also overlap with those of a paralegal (the smarter the administrative assistant, the more they will be leaned on to edit work, check research, etc.) But administrative assistants usually have contact with the public all day long, in that they are answering phones. They are far more likely to encounter clients. Again, I never dealt with any clients who were furious or stupid, but you seem to have a low opinion of humanity in general. If you’re looking to limit your interaction with the public at large, you’re more likely to have options to do that as a paralegal. ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/47 "2012-05-21T00:38:33Z")
I think the cutoff for how old a class has to be to be disqualified depends on the school and the major. For instance, my best friend has been going to college for years now and just found out that her math classes are no longer acceptable for the nursing program at the school because they’re over 5 years old. But, she is sick of the healthcare world (she’s a medical assistant) and decided to transfer to the education major instead. For education, her math classes are still good because there’s no cutoff. Now, in my case, my English 1 and 2 and History classes were done at Bay Path in 2004/2005. I transferred them to my community college in 2010. Then I transferred them to UConn in 2012. Neither the CC nor UConn had a problem accepting them. UConn even accepted my health class from Worcester State and that was from 1998! So, definitely sit down with an admissions counselor or advisor (whichever your school requires) and find out what classes they will take. You might be surprised at what transfers in. Also, you will probably have to take a math and/or english placement test and for english at least you should have no trouble testing out of the basic comp classes. CLEP will definitely be your friend too. The good thing is that there will be someone at the school who will know the answer to all these questions so it’d be a really good idea to talk to them and find out if the Medical Tech program would be a good fit with the credits you already have. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/48 "2012-05-21T02:42:00Z")
> [@Arrendajo](#): > > Wow libraries sure are different. I haven’t done a statistical survey, but I would say less than 1% of the patrons at my library cause any sort of problems whatsoever. Yelling? Rude behavior? Disrespecful to staff? That will get you talked to by a manager and if the behavior continues, banned from the library. And I love the crew I work with. Best job I ever had. I don’t ever want to retire. It really depends on the area that the library is in. If the library is located in an area with a lot of homeless people, for instance, then there’s going to be a significant number of library patrons who are not actually interested in reading or otherwise using the library as anything more than a place to get out of the heat or cold. And since they aren’t using the resources, they try to interact with the other patrons who ARE trying to use the library for study or research or just a place to borrow media. And then there’s the libraries that are basically used as a free after school care center by some parents. The nearest library to my old house was like this. The librarians and pages tried working with the kids, tried to get them interested in some of the materials available, tried enrichment programs. The library finally got a cop (don’t know if the cop was assigned or was moonlighting) to be in the library all day long. This cut down on the vandalism and the roughhousing to a considerable degree. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424/49 "2012-05-21T13:00:31Z")
> [@Q.N.Jones](#): > > I’m not sure where you’re getting your ideas about what it’s like to be a paralegal. > > The paralegals I worked at had little to no contact with clients. I’m sure some paralegals do, but many don’t. (As an attorney, I _did_ have contact with clients and I never encountered one who was furious OR stupid, and I worked with both the wealthy, the poor, and in between.) I’m not sure what the “crappiest parts of librarianship” are to you. The ones I worked with did a variety of things that boiled down to “assist attorneys on all aspects of litigation” (I was a litigator). That included preparing and formatting documents, legal research, and assisting with trial work (recording documents revealed in discovery, coding and preparing exhibits for presentation at trial, sitting at the trial and presenting said items for the attorneys as needed). > > Some attorneys are certainly not easy to work for. However, many law firms are pleasant work environments. > > However, it is worth noting that legal administrative assistants who are highly skilled are also able to distinguish themselves and command relatively high pay. Some of their duties will also overlap with those of a paralegal (the smarter the administrative assistant, the more they will be leaned on to edit work, check research, etc.) But administrative assistants usually have contact with the public all day long, in that they are answering phones. They are far more likely to encounter clients. Again, I never dealt with any clients who were furious or stupid, but you seem to have a low opinion of humanity in general. If you’re looking to limit your interaction with the public at large, you’re more likely to have options to do that as a paralegal. Sorry, I guess I’m coming off as a pretty nasty person, I guess because I’m feeling so defensive and burned out here at work. I don’t know where I got the impression that paralegals did have client contact, maybe from everybody saying that if you had a simple legal problem pretty much everything is done by paralegals. The thing is, I’m not interested in the law, so it would be like a librarian job with a lot of reference questions (yay!) but literally none of them are in an area I find interesting. Which would be okay if I wouldn’t have to get more schooling for it (it would just be a way out of where I am now) but it isn’t something I’d like to have to pay money and time to be able to do and then still not enjoy it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-career-guidance/622424.md?page=2)