Industrial Placement Students Review

Whilst working on my Industrial placement year at GSK, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience. The people I worked with in the team were fantastic as well as all the opportunities that were offered to me. I was able to work on my personal development as well as lab skills and see if I really wanted to work in a lab setting.

I thought I was very valued on my placement, I was able to contribute to my own project as well as help with others work. I could steer the direction of my work and suggest what I would like to do next. People also often came to me with advice about their work if it was similar to what I was working on. I also taught my supervisor how to use a machine which was very different!

My supervisor was constantly available for me to ask questions, no matter what I wanted to ask. She was vary patient with me, making me feel like I could ask anything at any time. I also thought I could ask anyone in my team or wider department if I was stuck as everyone was accommodating to me and understood that, especially at the start of the placement, I would not know as much and would need a lot of support.

My schedule wqould vary day-to-day, I would be able to choose when I did everything so I was never overly busy. On some days I would be non stop for the whole day in the lab (not a bad thing) and other days I would be in the office, so the two would counter-act each other. Days are often nicely split, sometimes you would be in the office analysing data / reading / report writing or going to meetings and other times you would be in the lab or planning experiments.

I was given a lot of responsibility with my project. Although the project aims had to align with the company and with my team, I was always allowed to give my opinions in discussions and this was always encouraged. I was expected to read around my project to think of things to do next in the lab.

The skills I have developed here will greatly help me in finishing my final year at uni and will help me in later life. I not only experienced a real life work situation, but also learnt valuable personal and lab skills. This has also helped me think of a future career path, by exposing me to different jobs which I would have never thought of before.

The office had a really great atmosphere. It was hot desking meaning no one has a set desk and people move around each day. This was new when I joined to even the full time employees were still getting used to it. The office was also newly refurbished, so all desks were in great condition. The screens were big and some desks had double screens. Ergonomics is really big at GSK, so everyone made sure you were comfortably working and there was a lot of emphasis on work life balance, and enjoying your work thus making the office a nice place to be.

Very organised - at the start of the placement, all of the IPs in my department had a 2 week training course. Here we all got to know each other and were able to get settled into work life. We also got taught some basic skills we would need for the year and did lots of online training courses.

They trained us completely and invested a lot of time and money into IP placements.

I would defiantly consider a full time role at GSK and have already applied for the future leader programme which is a graduate programme at GSK.

Because there are a lot of industrial placement students at GSK, most students knew each other. There were 14 of us in my smaller department, and 7 of us would do something every week and we even went on holiday to Portugal. At the start of the year there are a lot of organised events so all students can meet each other and this continues through out the year so every one meets up to go to the pub / club / house party. There is also an end of year boat party on the Thames in London for all IPs which is a lot of fun, as well as an IP Christmas party.

As we are near London (Stevenage) it was quite expensive

Only 1 club in the town which was rubbish

Stevenage is quite small, but it is what you make of it.