Industrial Placement, Global Health Review

I had an incredible time at GSK. My team were supportive, set me challenging but doable work and made sure I was fully involved in project work and not just admin to help my career development over the year. I had the opportunity to travel, lead meetings and co-ordinate projects independently.

My team were part of the reaosn my year was so enjoyable. They supported me, they challenged me, and they treated me like a colleague and not a student. I was given work to do that made me feel like I was truly helping the team and business and I was given good feedback when I did things successfully.

My manager and I had a weekly one to one meeting scheduled, when we would sit down and dicuss what I had ben doing and projects I could help out on over the following week. This was a good opportunity to set a bulk of work, but my manager was always on hand should I have any questions or tasks to talk about during the rest of the week.

During the first half of my placement, I did feel like I had too much spare time and some days did drag. But as more projects appeared in the pipeline and there was some restructure in the team, I ended up with lots to do. For a month or two, I then did feel overwhelmed and like I had too much on my plate, but eventually this settled down and for the last 6 months I ended up with a balanced workload.

Most tasks I was given did feel like they were making a difference to the company and were not just filler tasks. I had to co-ordinate 2-3 tender responses for worldwide organisations and it was so important I included all the right information and didn't get anything wrong. Occasionally I did feel like I was given things that didn't really matter e.g. printing or some internet research that didn't feel like it was going anywhere but mostly it was ok.

I don't think many of the skills I have developed will help me academically, because my placement followed by interests and not my academic pathway. However, hopefully the confidence, written communication and presentation skills I have developed this year will help me within modules and for coursework at University. I think beyond my studies, they will be invaluable and I feel much more ready for graduate interviews and employment.

My office is very quiet. The people are lovely but they are often on business trips or working remotely which placement students don't get to do as much. This meant the offcice was very empty and at times I was the only person in there. I would have preferred more of a buzz and some background noise. Across the rest of the building, people tended to be louder and busier so my area was just an exception.

My team have had placement students for years so they knew exactly what kind of work we could get involved with and manage, and made sure we were given tasks that would help us develop and not just because they didn't want to do them. As a company, GSK are also used to having lots of placement students so there is a huge social network and events throughout the year - socially and for career development.

Aside from my day-to-day role, I didn't do any extra training or development. My team definitely invested their time to help me, but the company didn't do much apart from offer me the placement position. I got a fast-track to the graduate scheme via manager reccomendation but once this stage is complete, I am on par with everybody else for video assessment and assessment centre so I don't think this really benefits me at all.

I would like to return to the company. I don't think there is much opportunity,particularly in my team, but I will be looking out for jobs. The bonus, holiday, working from home and travel are all bonuses to being an actuak GSK employee and I would be attracted to a career at GSK for these.

Yes. There is a lot of placement students, perhaps 350 across al sites and 70 in my location at GSK House. There is so many placement students it is difficult to socialise with them all so people do tend to stick within their groups however it is relatively easy to meet people and there are events on, especially when you start to meet people.

My rent was £600 a month, and was the cheapest I knew of any of the placement students. Socialising was ok as long as you were clever about it. I used to look for deals, vouchers, discount codes etc. On the outskirts of London where I was based things don't tend to be as bad as central prices but a lot of the socialising I did was further into the city.

In the area I worked, not very good. It was better to travel 20 minutes to South-West London to Fulham, Putney, Clapham. Yhese places had a much better scene and were not that far away. Brentford and Ealing don't really have anything open too late or many fun things to do.

GSK provided multiple opportunities to get involved in things which I took full advantage of, and I think other placement students should have taken the opportunity more. I did a charity bucket shake, a charity BBQ, helped sell raffle tickets, volunteered on a buddy scheme for students with learning difficulties, and I helped out at a Science Fair for kids in the Midlands. some of this volunteering is during work hours, some is not but your expenses are paid for and often you get a free lunch voucher or some sort of token for helping out.