Industrial Trainee Review

I really enjoyed my placement at Pfizer, there was a great overall atmosphere to working here. The team that I worked for was engaging and always interested in a new perspective on any lab or safety issues. I was encouraged in my first few weeks to challenge any scientists who I saw performing questionable practices or practices that I had performed differently at university in order to ensure that safest and most up-to-date procedure was performed and not learned behaviour tasks, i.e. its been done that way for 2 years so whychange it.

Within my team students were not treated like students and instead were treated as valuable members of the team. I was invited along to all project and business meetings and was even invited to an international conference within my first month at my placement which allowed me to network with colleagues all over the world. My opinion was respected at all these meetings and never pushed aside because I was a student and this allowed me to become more confident in voicing any concerns I had about lab safety or practices. The team have weekly meetings to discuss lab concerns and I appreciated that any suggestions I gave to sort these issues were always considered.

I had weekly meetings with my supervisor and quarterly project reviews with the rest of the team. There was always someone available for me to speak to at any time if I required general advice on lab conduct/safety etc...

The team that I worked on often dealt with high-priority work with short deadlines and this sometimes lent to a feeling of overworking and stress within the entire team. Compared to other placement students within Pfizer I often felt like I didn't have as much spare time to do Industrial trainee events (lab tours, learning workshops). However I was supplied with 5 volunteering days a year to allow me to assist at STEM or community events.

I ran my own project throughout the year and this involved me deciding on which experimental work should be done, timelines for work and reports, etc... I also spoke to staff in other departments and vendors in order to gain assistance or difference insights into my project.

During my placement year I was required to work at Pfizer as well as completing a literature review and a final project report. I also had to complete a distance learning course as part of my university requirements and therefore I believe that my time management skills were drastically improved over the year. My scientific writing skills also improved vastly over the year and I believe this will help me in my final year of uni when I have to undertake and write up a dissertation. My lab skills and safety awareness in the lab have also greatly improved, which will benefit me when I move on in my career.

The atmosphere was generally good within the team and as a close knit team we would often go for tea breaks together or plan out of work meet ups for dinner etc..

Very well organised. There was one initial induction day for all of the placement students with safety and training sorted by each department.

Online and on-the-job training was performed every few months to ensure that I was up-to-date with all safety procedures and all lab practices. The department was very interested in the results that I achieved in my project and valued this data as original work.

I am not entirely sure that the pharmaceutical industry is where I want to work in the future, however there are many employment opportunities available as a contracted resource (contractor).

There were some social night outs organised but any events that I went along to tended to be organised by my team at work.

The area I lived in (Canterbury) was very expensive to live in! I was surprised by how much rent cost. The price of restaurants and bars didn't really factor in when the team socialised however as we didn't go out often so could afford to go where we wanted when we did go out.

Some owls perhaps?! Pfizer is based at Discovery park and Sandwich is the nearest town, however it doesn't have much in the way of nightlife. Canterbury has some good pubs and clubs for when you want to go out and good bus and rail links to other parts of Kent.

I was involved in STEM events through work and also outside of work. There were also plenty of places in Canterbury that you could go if you wanted to meet people and do activities outside work.