Absolutely true!
Middle daughter needed a bio experience for her HS biotech course. (I had a lot of connections via work and neighbors.) My friend, a veterinarian, had a large practice and put my daughter to work learning basic lab procedures and universal precautions. She learned how to dress for a lab, how to wash/clean, wrap and autoclave instruments. She used the centrifuge, filled fluid medication for injection and learned how to work with the public. What neither we, nor our daughter knew at the time, was that this “training” gained her enough experience to gain her a lab job at her UC. Later, according to her PI, the team chose our daughter because of her experience working in a vet’s office. In the lab there, our daughter was very excited because she got to examine “frozen roadkill” animals. IIRC The researchers were checking to see if illness affected the animals condition going into oncoming traffic?
Our eldest also took the HS biotech course and was placed in a lab, putting tiny BP cuffs on mice, learning to do so without getting bitten. She was required to be an adult (18) for that experience. It was also unpaid work with tedious documentation. She learned how to document timely changes in behaviors of diabetic mice. She also learned how to dress in a lab and everything about universal lab procedures. One of the main reasons they really liked her, was because she was able to translate for international visitors. Although she didn’t speak, Mandarin, she had friends, in her high school, who did, and she quickly picked up the language throughout her time in high school.
Both girls spent a couple hours each day doing this. It wasn’t a full day of work. They got a lot of social breaks.
Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.