There is so much to learn about science and even just taking a scientific perspective of the world around us that the typical science student will greatly benefit from the use of laboratory notebooks. Laboratory notebooks will help them to keep all of their information in one safe place and can be something that they can (and often will) refer back to in the years to come. Laboratory notebooks are certainly a crucial part of any scientific proceedings, and their importance should not be dismissed in the world of scientific research.

Science is a growing field here in the United States, with STEM fields expected to jump by as much as thirteen percent in terms of employment rates in the years that are to come. Pharmaceuticals and medicine are an important area of science and one that, by necessity, must always be growing and changing. Clinical trails are a fantastic example of this, as clinical trials are really what pushes medicine forward and where many new and astounding scientific discoveries are made. The process of clinical trials is often far longer than many people realize and involves a huge amount of intensive work and research, often conducted with the help of laboratory notebooks and the scientific lab notebook. In fact, in the ten to fifteen years that it takes to create, test, and come out with a new vaccine, many scientists will have filled up a number of laboratory notebooks on just this once vaccine alone, taking detailed notes and cataloging and recording where they made progress and where they instead saw setbacks.

And the profession of becoming a biochemist and a pharmacist is also growing, with the entire profession of pharmacists growing by as much as nearly five percent by the time that we reach the year of 2024, only just over five years away from our current date here nearing the end of the year of 2018. Being a pharmacist is more difficult than many people realize, and often requires a strong scientific background as a biochemist. More and more people are embarking down this path, with as many as nine thousand and five hundred people receiving their degrees in biochemistry in the year of 2016 alone.

And these students, when begin their education to become a biochemist, know that they’re in it for the long haul. After all, becoming a biochemist takes around eight years of schooling, longer if you have to take time off or only go to school part time for awhile (or even for the whole duration of your time in school), as many of us do while we balance full working lives, careers, and families. During this time at school, laboratory notebooks will likely be widely utilized, even as the world becomes more and more technologically engaged. Of course, the advancement of technology will be very helpful in the world of biochemistry and science in general, but having a science notebook and laboratory notebooks is still hugely important. Laboratory notebooks allow you to take notes in the moment, jotting down split second observations that might even end up having a profound impact on the research that you are conducting. And you never know when you might need to look back on these laboratory notebooks at a future date – you never know what information will become important in the studies that you do later on in your career. If anything, keeping laboratory notebooks allows you to look back on your growth not only just as a student, but as a scientist as well.

Science is a field that, just by the nature of it, is ever growing and ever changing. As a burgeoning scientist, you will need to adapt to this mentality and not hold on too tightly to the past. However, there is no doubt about it that past research can very much serve as building blocks for future research, and so the research found in your student laboratory notebooks should never be discounted. The world of science is vast and waiting for you, and keeping such notebooks will help to keep you always progressing.