Bioscience Placement Student Review

There were times that I really enjoyed, when lab work was working and I had stuff to do. At other times, I was either very bored or things were very slow to sort out like precurement and IT etc. which was very frustrating at times.

People were very friendly and generally helpful.

Supervisors and managers were helpful, if occasionally difficult to pin down. During the first several months of the placement it was difficult to get a clear idea of what my project was going to be which left me with nothing to do for the start and then very busy at the end.

It varied a lot during the year, for the first 4 months I did not have much to do at all, and was generally quite bored. From christmas to May I had enough work to keep me busy during the day but definitely nothing to take home or work extra hours, after that when the project and final lab work needed to be completed I have been very busy.

Sole responsibility for most of my project work and some of the routine lab work carried out by my team, though it was only after a lot of training, you dont have to do anything that you are not ready to

I think this placement will have helped me gain a lot of experience that I wouldn't have otherwise got, e.g. presenting to large groups, independent timetable management, experience with liaising proffessionally with external companies etc. This should all help me when applying for jobs. I don't really feel like my biology knowledge has improved generally as the work is on a very specific area of pharma.

Because of site closer the moral is generally low, and many people are just waiting for redunancy. This means it is sometimes difficult to stay enthusiastic, having said that the atmostphere is very laid back and the people are really nice to work with and there is no pressure put on you.

This is the main downfall of the placement, it would have been nice to have a more formal introduction week to ease you in and help you to learn more about the company and placement. Instead on the first day we were just shown to our desk. For several months there was no set plan (or at least it wasnt made clear) as to what my project would be and then when there was there was a lot of setting up things with precurement that needed to be done first before I could get started. This meant that my project was only started a week before christmas. I would have really benefitted from an induction week as starting was quite daunting and there was several weeks at the start where I had nothing to do and very little contact with my supervisor.

We did get to join some of the training for the grad scheme but this was when we had already been at the company a few weeks. They do offer the option of presenting your work at a conference which will be a great opportunity, and we were able to go down to cambridge a couple of times. It might have been nice to get some more formal feedback during the year on what we could generally improve on/what we were doing well.

I have realised that lab work it not the area I want to persue a career in, I wouldnt rule out working for AZ in a different area though.

We were all fairly social as placement students though due to the site closure there was not many of us and also were in contact with the students from another local site.

Macclesfield is very cheap to rent in and fairly cheap in terms of drinks prices etc.

There are several nice pubs and resturants in Macclesfield, and one club, its quite a small town but manchester is easy to get to for bigger nights out.

I think there are several local clubs, we did kickboxing for a while.