Back when he was working toward his bachelor’s degree in biology, Mustafa Alobeidy got a microscopic look at a chick embryo that changed the way he saw virtually everything.
He left the lab at his Westchester County college, walked outside and found himself gawking at the Canada geese migrating overhead. The ordinary seasonal sight had turned almost spiritual with Alobeidy’s awareness that he and the geese had started their lives as nearly identical cells.
“That was mind-blowing, and I wanted to know more,” Alobeidy said.
It would be a few more years before the 35-year-old would see his future career with the same clarity. And when he did, the realization that he wanted to be back in a lab led him to ACPHS.
Between earning his BS in 2014 and arriving on campus in August 2023, Alobeidy had pursued a few different avenues. A student athlete as an undergrad, he later played soccer semiprofessionally and then joined his brother in several business ventures.
But that itch for science – the pull toward behind-the-scenes investigative work and the satisfaction of discovery – had never truly waned. When Alobeidy saw a job posting a couple of years ago for a clinical laboratory scientist, he knew with sudden assuredness that’s what he wanted to do next. Then he realized his bachelor’s degree would not be enough; indeed, he needed a license.
The Dutchess County resident considered schools closer to him, but none in his vicinity incorporated preparation for certification into the curriculum. So Alobeidy decided it was worth the two-hour commute four days a week to earn his master’s at ACPHS.
He has not been disappointed, he said. While he is older than most other students, he has found his classmates to be likeminded in their focus on science and what they need to achieve to embark on their intended careers. And he likes the old-school academic rigor on which ACPHS has built its reputation.
“It’s very intense,” Alobeidy said of the coursework. “But at the same time, a month or two passes and I’m like, my god, I know all this information.”
He has been surprised by the depth of knowledge he has acquired in various laboratory subspecialties – microbiology, cytology, immunology and others.
“The way we are being taught is making us the best in all these different labs,” he said.
It’s perhaps no surprise that Alobeidy’s strongest interest is in embryology.
He is confident he will be well prepared to enter the job market when he graduates next year, as the need for clinical laboratory scientists grows. There were more than 340,000 positions for people with clinical laboratory expertise across the country in 2022, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects another 17,000 will be created over the next 10 years, a faster-than-average growth rate.
Bachelor's and master's programs in Clinical Laboratory Sciences are enrolling now.