Felicia Rice
Mayo Clinic Hospital
Phoenix, AZ USA
"Believe in yourself and know that you can do it...So what if you’re floundering? You’ll only be floundering for a little bit of time."
Career Roadmap
Felicia's work combines: Science, Medicine, and Problem Solving
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
There are a lot of different areas of lab work that you can really get into. Microbiology is where I felt the best, but I recommend trying out the different areas to see what works the best for you. You can be a generalist as a lab worker, so you'll get to touch a bunch of different fields which is great!
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Biology/Biological Sciences, General
St. Mary's College, Notre Dame
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life has been direct
1.
I grew up in Indiana.
2.
My dad was an orthopedist, so I grew up around that field and realized early on that I wanted to do something similar.
3.
I earned my undergraduate degree in biology at St. Mary’s College in Indiana and then did a one-year certification program in Chicago.
4.
I got pregnant when I was still in school and realized that I probably wasn’t going to end up becoming a doctor and practicing with my dad as I had originally planned.
5.
After graduating, I took a couple of years off to spend more time raising my children.
6.
When I went back to work, I moved around through various jobs in the medical field to try and find something that would be fulfilling to me—I ended up really liking microbiology.
7.
I didn’t want my children to experience a bumpy childhood, so I spent a lot of time working the third shift to ensure that I could be with my children during the day.
8.
I eventually felt like I needed a change of scenery, so I moved with my children to Phoenix, Arizona, to work as a microbiologist for the Mayo Clinic Hospital—it’s been a great experience so far!
Defining Moments
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
I'm a single mom, which has been difficult in and of itself at times. Additionally, my children are mixed race, so it has also been a struggle to see the racial discrimination they experience.
As a single mom, I didn't want my children to have a bumpy childhood. I spent a lot of time working third shift and sacrificing sleep so that I could take my children to school, be with them in the afternoons, and go to all of their extracurriculars.