Support Engineer Review

An engineering placement at GSK is for you if you like high level work such as project planning or identifying ways that a process can be improved. Soft skills such as people skills are very important. While being scientifically literate is necessary, skills such as degree level maths/CAD/mechanics are mostly unused.

As much support and guidance as I wanted. If I wanted to do something unusual as part of my placement then my manager would support and assist me in doing it.

Not that busy at first, would occasionally find myself without things to do while waiting for people to get back to me. As I became more familiar with the site & processes and therefore more capable and useful, there was as much work as I could take on. However I never felt like I had an excessive workload or unrealistic expectations of me.

Earlier in the placement I was given smaller tasks, but they were entirely my responsibility. I would find my own solutions to problems rather than follow a set of instructions to achieve an expected result. Later in the placement I was given considerable responsibility on large projects with sizeable budgets.

Placement was varied. Managers took care to ensure that projects would benefit my development as well as the company. Spoke to various contractors & specialists outside the company which gave insight into other fields. Lots of training opportunities. Interesting to see how a large company works. Having looked at advertised jobs in other factories I can see that other companies run their factories in similar ways meaning that the skills and knowledge gained are very transferable. Limited development of academic skills that will assist directly in degree studies (e.g. maths, CAD, thermo...), but good development of project planning skills.

Quite relaxed. Much of the time people would be out of the office walking around the factory, which is nice if you want to escape from your desk. The operators on the factory were always helpful. My colleague sat next to me would bring in delicious apples from home that I got to eat.

Took me a while to get my phone set up, otherwise fine,

Lots. I think around 50% of the people in the graduate scheme are made up of people who have done an industrial placement, so they are aiming to develop people. I had a number of training courses on things like static ignition awareness, I had over 100 learning items regarding the Standard Operating Procedures, I also got a level 3 food safety qualification. In addition to training I travelled to a number of different sites, as well as participated in a large off-site health and safety event. I mentioned before that the projects I was given were intended to be of benefit to both the company and to me in terms of meeting the requirements of my university course and personal development.

Industrial placement students can be recommended for early interview for the GSK graduate scheme (future leaders). Future Leaders scheme looks pretty good. Also opportunity for direct entry into a role.

There were 5 IPs at my site, I think just about all sites had at least a few IPs. Before you start you are added to a Facebook group so that you can make contact with the other IPs at your site and potentially sort out accommodation. We didn't socialise as much as we should've and usually went home on weekends, would've been terrible without them though.

Slough, was pretty cheap despite being so close to London. £333/month for a shared unfurnished flat excluding bills.

I'm pretty sure that there isn't any nightlife in Slough. I just googled it to make sure and there literally isn't. Windsor is your closest bet.

In Slough nobody does anything. It's not a university city and there doesn't seem to be any activities for anyone other than school kids. I assume that everyone goes home from work and looks after their children. If you have children then you're all set, otherwise take up a solo activity like running?