Product Development Technician Review

On the whole I enjoyed my year at 3M. My departmental colleagues were all highly friendly and did not treat me like I was 'just the student'. As a member of a lab, I was encouraged to innovate and try new things. I gained experience using a wide range of lab equipment and learned a variety of techniques. Being surrounded by highly intelligent chemists in the lab gave me the chance to ask questions and learn a lot about the industry from them.

I worked in a relatively open plan office which encouraged you to share your work and get other people's opinions. Everyone was really friendly and wanted to get to know you better. When I needed help or wanted to broaden my understanding of something someone was always happy to help. The people I worked with was one of the best parts of my placement.

I had weekly one-to-one meetings with my supervisor where they gave me new work to do and I updated them on the progress of ongoing or finished work. They were always keen to know how I was doing and gave me encouragement wherever I needed it. They were very conscious of my development and tried to ensure I was always improving and doing my best.

Each day is different, and relatively up to you to plan. I was never left with nothing to do. If there was little work to do on my project then there were plenty of people who would give me other jobs to do. Mostly I was kept very busy and planned my days in the lab around meetings and the occasional day doing training at 3M HQ or other sites. Being kept busy suits me so I found the balance perfect.

From doing chemistry at uni where you are only ever doing what you have been told exactly to do, this was a real breath of fresh air. Innovation is encouraged and I could experiment with whatever I liked in the lab and run my studies how I felt to. I was given just the right amount of direction with the freedom to manage my own experiments and test any ideas I had.

A lot. I learnt several new areas of chemistry I'd never even heard of before. I also learnt so many things that you can only learn from actually working in an industrial lab yourself. Good safety practice, filing your own COSHH and risk assessments prepares you for a real job, and you rarely get that from the sheltererd environment of uni labs. Obviously enhanced communication skills and organisation go without saying - placements undoubtedly prepare you for a job in the real world in a way uni simply can't.

Friendly, focused, curious (people want to know what you're working on and are interested in your studies!). A happy place to work with a fairly relaxed atmosphere. Cake Friday always kept up morale! The office was made up of people of all ages and roughly equal men and women. Given a large desk, storage space, and my own bench in the lab.

My placement was different to most other chemistry students in that I didn't have my own enclosed project. Here you get assigned to provide lab support for a priority project working alongside very intelligent and highly experienced product developers who will direct you. My work consisted of many small studies and experiment looking at various things - you were not doing the same thing day in day out like some other places will have you do. As 3M takes on so many placement students across the company the organisation of the year is superb including a two week handover period with previous students to ensure a seamless transition.

Lots! They have a great program for industrial placement students and graduates to encourage self development, networking, personal branding and other key parts of being a 'professional' these days. These are also great for getting all the students together and learning what the rest of the company is like. The training was above and beyond what I expected for just one years placement!

At the moment, unless I get a PhD I will probably not be able to get a job working in the lab I am currently in. However a student two years before me was a placement student, and they have recently been employed after graduation in a different part of the business.

There were lots of other young people ie. other students and graduates to socialise with and there were events organised across the site and also inter department and office events.

It was really cheap to live in Atherstone and not that high general cost of living in the Midlands.

Shocking. In neighbouring towns there are clubs, but not the kind you would probably want to be seen in.

Yes they have a sports and social committee and the young people normally meet up and go out somewhere. There was a Christmas do and also other events carried out by departments. Things like 5 A side football and BBQ's happen. Whenever someone leaves there is usually a leaving do and also small things like coffee and cake to celebrate success in the office. Go Ape also was organised in the office I was in. If you wanted to organise something it was easy to do so.