Industrial placement student Review

- I enjoyed it more than I thought I would as I didn't know if I wanted to pursue a career in laboratory work or research. - Due to changes in the company the project I was working on got cancelled and I didn't have much work to do other than writing up my report in the last 3 months which left me very bored and unmotivated.

It was nice to have my supervisor checking up on me regularly and was interested in all the work I was doing and felt like my work and time wasn't going unnoticed. I also presented some for my work at meetings and it was great to have people listening and to have feedback.

My supervisor has been so helpful throughout the year and having weekly 121 meetings as well as daily catch ups. She's helped me in the first few months learning lab techniques so I could then become more independent later in the year. My supervisor has also helped a lot with writing skills and guidance on writing my final year report.

There was a delay with my work which meant I didn't have a lot to do around December for a whole month and then my project got cancelled which meant I was writing my end report for almost 3 months where I was very bored especially as I was staring at the same piece of work the whole time and there was no variety. Looking back I sould've asked for extra work to do but my supervisor wanted to leave new laboratory work until after my report was finished.

I was given some responsibility. I was in charge of most of the experiments conducted for my report where I came up and designed the experiments myself and had to manage my time effectively. I also needed to contact other colleagues in order to book time on the machines I was using o to work around other people's timelines if I was collaborating with them.

Writing the final year report, with the guidance and support from my supervisor, will definitely help with my degree studies as a large percentage of my final year mark will be a laboratory project with a written up lab report. I won't be pursuing a career in research science but the skills from presenting in team meetings and collaborating with other scientists on projects will definitely be beneficial.

- it was a big office and not many people interacted with each other - the office was quite cliquey and the students didn't really mix or socialise with other colleagues. However, this isn't a universal situation at GSK, only this particular office as other students mixed and socialised a lot more with the rest of the team in the office.

Very well organised. There were two weeks of training where all the students were together before we split up to work with our individual supervisors who gave us more specific training and taught us more specific lab skills that would be relevant for the year's project ahead. The training weeks were thorough and well organised and definitely helped all the students settle in to placement year easily.

It was mainly my supervisor who invested into my personal development and training. My supervisor made sure that I was learning a wide range of lab techniques and a variety of different assays. We also had monthly meetings with a tutor who was very invested in our personal development and helped with CV advice and interview practice which was very helpful. There were also numerous talks and lectures that we could attend throughout the year.

Not for me personally as I haven't enjoyed working for a big corporate company and I don't want to pursue a career in science research. The graduate schemes are very appealing, especially as your supervisor can give a recommendation if you are interested in the graduate schemes. Also due to the location of the site I would not like to live here again.

The netball club has a really good social scene which allowed me to meet like-minded students and employees. Most teams have a really good social scene and I've been told that most students have gone out on team/department lunches, team building exercises and team socials. This was not the case for my team/ department unfortunately.

Talking to other students the housing prices can vary massively and luckily my rent was quite low. There isn't a lot to do in Stevenage so I found that I spent a lot of time going into London which is a short train ride away but the cost of socialising in London is very expensive. I also spent a lot of money travelling to meet friends and family every weekend as I didn't enjoy living in Stevenage, especially as all the students are spread out and it isn't easy to meet up with other students.

There are plenty of pubs and Wetherspoons around which is where I went if I was to go out for a drink. There are 3 bars that get decently busy on a weekend which weren't really my cup of tea and I didn't go there often at all. London was closest to go to for good nightlife however it is a trouble getting back home as there are not many late trains.

There were local netball, football and hockey clubs and quite a few gyms around. There was also climbing and kayaking a short distance away which was easy to get to with a car however this is not very well advertised and only at the end of the year did I realise that these sports clubs were close by.