Industrial Placement Student Review

I highly enjoyed my time with GSK. Everyone was very welcoming and there was a great community of placement students there, and we all became great friends over the course of the year. The majority of the lab work I did was very interesting, however there's always routine work that needs to be done, which isn't terribly exciting, but I realise is a necessity. At the beginning it was difficult to get myself into the 9-5 routine, but that soon changed!

I felt extremely valued by my team and everybody I worked alongside in the lab and in the office. I was treated as a colleague and friend, never 'just a student'. Everybody was very kind and welcoming right from the very beginning, and now a year later my team feel like good friends. I had more or less the same access to information and areas at work as all the full time employees. My work was never treated any differently to anybody else's.

A lot of the time I was left to my own devices without any specific instructions or tasks to carry out. However, I feel that this forced me to be more pro-active. My line manager and project supervisor were always nearby, so if ever I needed help or wasn't sure what to do next, they would offer more support. I had some (I wouldn't say regular) meeting/updates with my line manager to discuss my project and progress.

The amount of work I had to do fluctuated quite a lot. There were some days when I felt a bit swamped and ended up staying late to complete work, and others when I left early because I finished everything and had no more work left to do. However I did largely manage my own tasks and time, and completed everything at my own pace.

At the beginning, a lot of training to use specific analysers was necessary, but once I was signed off when my training was complete, I was given full access and responsibility for work in the lab. This made me feel quite important and that my work mattered. When I did my own project, I was given full responsibility over how the project progressed, and what equipment/samples needed to be ordered, etc (of course I was also given advice from my team).

I think that this placement has been invaluable in that, since I had so much responsibility, this will make me much more confident when I go back to university and have to manage my final year project myself. At university you do get spoon-fed a bit and I think this has really made me capable of managing my own time effectively and making me more proactive. Even if I never use the specific knowledge that I've gained here again, it has still been a very beneficial experience.

I worked in a 'hot-desking' environment so communication was very effective since you could see and hear everyone around you very easily. There was often lots of banter between my team and with people from other departments. It was nice to be sitting nearby people doing jobs completely different to yours as well, so I could see other aspects of what its like to work for GSK.

My entry into work with GSK was seamlessly organised by another company called SRG. There were contacts with SRG who you could easily as questions to about holiday, pay etc. They also organised an induction day for a couple of months before the placement started, so you could meet the people you'd be working with in advance.

There are many ways to enter the company - apprenticeships, graduate schemes and directly into entry level positions after graduation. They are also one of the top graduate employers and have several sites in the UK. I think doing an industrial placement with them definitely puts you near the top of their list for future employment. Many ex-placement students also come back to do additional (paid) summer work, if there is space within their department.

The GSK site (Ware) I worked at had around 15-20 placement students in R&D, and maybe another 15 on the GMS site (located in the same town, just across the road from R&D!). The R&D students formed a very close friendship group but would also meet up with the GMS students for parties etc. We also socialised with graduates working here too. My team at work were all quite a lot older than me. While we had a great time together at work, we didn't really meet up outside of work (other than for birthday lunches out, GSK Christmas party etc).

Cost of living was fairly high, especially rent as the town is quite near to London. However you do get paid the national living wage for London, and the rent is nowhere near as expensive as it would be in London. Going to a pub/bar etc is fairly expensive (which I guess is again, due to London proximity), but food and travel are the same as they are everywhere else. I never had a problem with money as the wage I got was high enough.

Ware is a small town, but has quite a few bars and pubs. The nearest nightclub is in a nearby town (5 min drive) but is fairly expensive and not that great! The students often met up for drinks after work, had house parties, and got the train into London for nights out there. You can use an oyster card to get to the train to London (about 30 mins) and it's quite cheap to get there too, so these nights out were fairly often :)

We had an on-site gym. It was also very easy to get involved with charity work (on site and off site). I did a lot of work representing GSK in events for schools at the National and Regional Big Bang Science fairs. I also visited the Stevenage site a few times.