Applied Science Placement Student Review

I have really enjoyed my placement year at Lubrizol. It's a friendly atmosphere to work and has a large student population. The confidence I have gained from working in the lab will help me greatly in my final year of university, and if I chose to persue a chemistry career,

Students onsite are treated as if they're permanent staff. I've made some good friends here with both the permanent staff and the students onsite.

My supervisor is always on hand for any questions or queries I have while in the lab. The support in terms of background information for the role was invaluable. In terms of feedback more could've been given.

There is constantly things to be done in the lab. It'd tend to be given a list of things to work through at my own pace then get more added when I'd achieved the work. This meant that I was always busy but never stressed by the work load and it massively improved my time management skills.

Once trained, I was left to run the bench tests myself, with my supervisor around to answer any questions or any queries I had with results obtained.

This year has really improved my time management, organisation, communication and lab skills. In addition to this there are opportunities to give presentations and posters to a technical audience on the work you've completed to help improve presentation skills.

I share an office with my supervisor, it has a casual, informal atmosphere with my supervisor always around for questions that I have. The atmosphere in the lab is very friendly with everyone helping each other out and getting on well. It definitely makes the job more interesting when you can have a chat while setting up tests.

Lubrizol has had students for years, and this is obvious in the organisation of the year. From the interviews, to familiarization day and actually starting everything is designed with the students in mind. There was a crossover period with the previous student in my position, and she trained me on a lot of tests and made me feel really welcome which makes a big difference.

All the necessary training for the tests that I ran was given. There was also additional training on things like how to give poster presentations, which will definitely help in the future.

While I have really enjoyed my time at Lubrizol, I am still massively unsure what I want to do once I have finished university or if I'd want to live in Derby, It is a great place to work and if I did decide to work in chemistry I would consider it.

In work, most of the students sit and have lunch together so we can catch up with students that are not in our department, Out side of work many of the students meet up for drinks regularly in the pub after work, in addition to going on nights out and doing other activities together, some of which were subsidized by Lubrizol. Everyone gets on really well and having the other students around has really improved my year.

Main benefit of Derby is how cheap rent is it in comparison to larger cities. Shopping is about the same. Despite rent being cheap, drinks are more expensive than I thought they would be here.

Derby nightlife isn't fantastic, but I think that's more due to the fact it is a small city so the variety isn't there. The nights out are still fun and although there are not many clubs to chose from there is a very large selection of bars/ pubs. For better clubs it's easier to take the bus to Nottingham which is only 25 mins away. Previous students organised nights out during our handover period to show us the best places to go and where not to go.

The sports and social club organize a large variety of events: Sports (badminton, football) Day trips (London, york etc) Go karting Munro bagging They're all subsidized and open to any new suggestions of things people want to do