Welcome to achieve more with Athens Tech, the official podcast of Athens Technical College. This is where you'll discover how the programs at Athens Tech can connect you with in-demand and high paying careers. Today we're gonna look at the bioscience program at Athens Tech.00:00:18S2I started out as just, you know, a lab tech, and I am now a senior protein chemist. And I just worked my way up the ladder here. Um, just with the skills that I gained and the knowledge that I gained from Athens Tech.00:00:35S3So we hire Athens tech students. We've hired a number of students. We, you know, interest in these students because they're trained in the skills that I need to do the jobs that my clients want us to do.00:00:49S4On my first day, June 1st, 1998, I walked in the door and the the lab director, Jenks Patel said, here's this, this, this go assay these fractions.00:01:01S1Bioscience technicians use the principles and theories of science and mathematics to assist in research and development and in the invention and improvement of products and processes. Which sounds incredibly cool, but the real story here is jobs. Lots of jobs in a growing industry.00:01:17S5The partnership that we have with HTC is more than just being a student, and it's more than just finding a job. If you look at our charter at Athens Research, we're creating leaders in our company. We're creating leaders that are also that are leaders outside these four walls. We call leaders in the community. And we're also creating leaders that are respected in the industry.00:01:34S1We're going to get to that. But first, let's find out some details of what the bioscience program actually is.00:01:40S6I'm Doctor Nicole Parker, and I am the chair of bioscience at Athens Technical College. Bioscience allows you to develop your skills working in the lab, learning different techniques, manipulation of DNA, growth of bacterial cells, cell culture with eukaryotic organisms, and a lot of chemistry on the side. To really get you a good background, to be prepared to go into industry and work straight out of school.00:02:10S7I'm Michael, married and a teacher. Biology and chemistry. General chemistry and organic chemistry. In addition, I teach, uh, what is called regulatory compliance for bio manufacturing and quality assurance and validation of bio manufacturing and patents and technology transfer. Prior to coming to Athens Technical College, I worked at a biotechnology company, and I got experience then in, um, the bio manufacturing process and development of a process.00:02:52S1So what are the classes in this program really like?00:02:54S6Our classrooms are a mixture of lecture and labs. So we will have a number of labs scheduled for the semester. And we build our lecture around that. So generally our meeting times are let's say from eight to noon. And that sort of is a mixture of the lecture and lab components. And we have a lot of time to be able to really work on our skills in the lab and make sure that we understand not just the results of it, but why we're doing each step so that we have the ability to critically think about any mistakes or any results that might not look correct, and go back and make sure that the students can thoroughly understand what they've done, why they've done each step, and develop those skills that allows them to really succeed when they leave here.00:03:46S1And there's a hands on aspect to the bioscience program at Athens Tech to.00:03:50S7Say about 60%, 65% hands on experimental work and then 35% lectures. So, so 65% laboratory or so, the clean room work and then the 35% lectures.00:04:10S6We do have a hands on approach to the labs and to the courses themselves, and that's to make sure that you have plenty of practice with the skills that you're learning. Our students have the opportunity to create their own chemicals, where in a number of other labs, the chemicals would be created for them and they would simply be doing the reaction. But in our courses, we have the ability to go from step one, which is construction of the different solutions that we'll be using all the way to the assay we might be conducting, or any other various experiments so that they see how it's done from the ground up and it's not prepped...
