Industrial placement scientist at GSK Review

It was a good chance to get an insight to what the industry was like. It was not fantastic throughout but I believe this was a personal experience which I had. Overall I am glad I did the placement but there was definitely things that could have been done throughout which would had improved the placement. One thing that was really good about this placement was that it was very social and full time members of staff would go for drinks after work on occasion.

I definitely felt undervalued in the team which I was assigned to. I did loads of overtime and I did not get any credit for the time or hard work I put in. I was doing more hours than a lot of the full time staff and I worked harder than them but this was never recognised.

Sometimes I was supported massively (even if I didn't need it for so easy things) whereas other times I had absolutely no support even when things were going wrong. It depended on who had the expertise in my team which dictated if I was supported or not. This lead to me having to do more work than was actually necessary just repeating experiments etc.

Massively overworked most of the year. There were some weeks where the balance was healthy so I would still be busy but could happily keep on top of everything. However when things were at their most hectic it lasted for months and it was horrible with no support. I never really got any down time whilst I was at work, I also worked through my lunch a fair bit throughout the year.

My project was a very big (ambitious) one and so I had a lot of responsibility. Sometimes I was slightly micromanaged which was not good and felt very patronising but the vast majority of the time I knew what was expected of me and so I was in control of when I would do my experiments etc.

I learnt a lot of new scientific skills on this placement. I feel obviously on placement you will be studying in a certain area and this is the same with any placement so it is a little niche but the skills you learn from the year as a whole should be transferable to your future. I believe this will be the case for me.

The office was obviously a workplace so it was fairly quite but the vibe was friendly and chilled so you could listen to music, approach people for questions and get on with your own work without disruption. If you were less busy (which sadly didn't apply for me) there was also scheduled unwritten tea breaks.

It was very well organised and structured. The only thing that was bad in this regard was my project was planned and the timelines were basically plucked out of thin air which meant they were unrealistic and this meant I was overworked. Everything else on this placement like the first few weeks getting familiar etc. Was executed really well.

They definitely invested in training me in my specific area so I could complete my job to a high enough standard. Learning what other people did was limited obviously if I had more free time this might be different. Also learning stuff in great detail e.g why things happened etc wasn't always explained. So training provided was more to ensure you knew enough for your job role and that was enough additional training/knowledge wasn't encouraged.

GSK is a big company and therefore obviously recruit a lot of staff. They also encourage early talent such as industrial placements and apprentices. They have stuff in place for post grad students as well so as a recruiter there definitely is prospects but job progression seems quite stationary overall.

Yeah staff would do stuff after work. Team builds also happened which I think is a great idea. They also hire a lot of students which is good but a lot of them this year were from nearby and so would go home on the weekends. This was not an option for me so sometimes weekends I felt very lonely.

It's not the cheapest area but we got paid on placement and this covered all expenditures and more so cannot complain about that at all. Money was never a massive issue and you definitely have enough to do fun things. I wouldn't say things nearby were "cheap as chips" however.

Stevenage is appalling area. There was nothing to do and no nightlife. It really is the case that you need to make your own fun here and if all other student have gone home for the weekend this can be extremely challenging. This was one of the worst aspects of the placement.

After works drinks or food is the only example I can think of. There wasn't really other opportunities available and if there were then they were not advertised very well in my department and so I am not aware of them. At the end of the day I guess your are at your placement to work.