Synthetic Chemistry Sandwich Student Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at AstraZeneca.

There was a very friendly atmosphere. My colleagues were nice and very knowledgable people to talk to and work with. We were integrated fairly well into our respective teams.

We had our own personal supervisors, who worked alongside ourselves in the lab. Mine provided fantastic support, and was a lot of help throughout the year. The line managers were also very supportive, and helped you when you needed them throughout the year too.

The workload varied from day to day, but it was always managable. It was rare for me to be either too bored or too busy, We mostly worked at our own pace, which I found fairly comfortable.

At the start of the placement, we were given fairly low levels of responsiblity. There were many opportunities for people to take up more responsiblities if they wished throughout the year. However, many responsibilities could only be given to permenant staff members due to safety.

I furthur developed my laboratory skills, and knowledge of chemistry, both of which are essential to my degree. I also gained good knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry. We experienced how the pharmaceutical industry operates, and there were frequent talks given by various sectors of AstraZenca, ranging from the patent office to the IT department.

The office was fairly quiet, and allowed you to work in near quiet whenever you wished. The lab was much more active and lots more fun to be in. It was a very friendly atmosphere, and a nice place to work in.

The placement was well organised in general. The induction week allowed an easy transition into the company. We were treated like regular employees for the most part. There were a few placement student specific events run for us. However, we were paid by a 3rd party company Hays, who were sometimes difficult to work with.

There were cccasional 'away days' to promote teamwork amongst our colleagues. There were also severael on-site conferences, which allowed us to learn a bit more about chemistry being doen at AstraZeneca. Other opportunities were also availble if sought, such as CV and careers help, but they were not as relevant to me.

There was no guarentee of future employment for us, we would be interviewed along with other candidates. However, there are several opportunties for employment available at graduate and PhD level.

There were many other sandwich students around (~40), as well as graduate interns (~20) who were were able to socialise with, both at work and outside of work.

The rent for properties around Macclesfield was fairly low, and cheap to live in. The bars around the area were slightly pricier as they were not aimed at university level students. There's also a nice range of restaurants to dine out at too,

Macclesfield had a much quieter nightlife compared to university cities, but there were still a few bars and clubs to be around. Alderley Edge has some nice bars, and it was possible to have a night out in Manchester, as it was only a short train ride away.

There were plenty of opportunities for activities outside of work. ClubAZ allowed for gym/sports, and there was also a DW sports centre in Macclesfield. Stockport's a half hour drive away, and there's quite a few places to go there.