These experiences all sound fantastic. But “lab work” is also logging in supplies and checking them against the purchase orders; going through the weekly payroll report to make sure that the “clocked in” hours for the lab techs matches what’s going to accounting to get them paid accurately; running endless statistical reports (and then verifying the results) to make sure that nobody misplaced a decimal point.
Executing rats is positively glamourous compared to some of the stuff my kids did as “research assistants”.