Placement Student Review

It definitely has its ups and downs and it is very much dependent on you supervisor and your project. Pros - I worked on an exciting new area of science , which has strong impact on the future of the pharmaceutical industry, academia and research in general. My project was very broad and included various techniques, which I'd mastered by the end of the placement. I learned how to design, perform and analyse experiments independently. I also got to work with a small group of scientist, helping me improved on my interpersonal skills. Cons - I was getting very little support from my supervisor, who would be there to answer questions but would never directly work on the project we had to complete together. My supervisor had personal issues throughout the year, which made my life a nightmare. Additionally, since he wasn't performing any of the lab work or the data analysis, I always had way more work to do than other students, was very stressed for the majority of the placement and had to work from home every evening and weekend. Also, my project was not considered as impactful a other projects, therefore, I didn't have a chance to present or talk about it in meetings as much as I wanted to. Overall, not the best experience I've had in a lab before. However, people did enjoy their placements. As I mentioned, it is very much dependent on whether you are interested in your project and whether your supervisor is okay.

I felt valued by people in my research group. The people I worked with were very nice and we helped each other with whatever we could. My supervisor was the only one who disrupted the group dynamic due to 'always wanting to have the last word' attitude and lack of interpersonal skills. People from my department who worked on similar projects were always happy to schedule a meeting to help with data interpretation and to hear about the progress I've made, but there wasn't many of them. In general, my project was very different from what the department was doing as a whole, resulting in people showing little interest in what I do and how much work has been put in it.

My supervisor was helpful in providing guidance and suggestions. He was always around for a chat and would suggest online courses or activities within GSK for me to complete the goals I'd set in the beginning of the placement. However, he wasn't very understanding of what is a realistic amount of workload because he hadn't had a placement student before that. Also, I never got any support in the lab even when I needed it, making me stress, rush and occasionally make silly mistakes. When I talked to his line manager, I didn't achieve much either. I was told that my supervisor just doesn't understand how much work I actually do as he is never in the lab with me or that I have poor time management skills.

It depends on the time of the year. In the beginning of the year, my project was not completely organised and I had to find things to read/do by myself. I was given a few experiments to do but this barely helped my fill in half of the time. When I actually started working on my project, I was in for longer than the average 7.5 hours a day, every day. Also, I had to work from home to complete my office work, which I struggled with as I was spending the majority of my time in the lab trying to get some results for my university write-up.

I was the only person who was doing the work - research, experimental design and analysis - on my project and was given additional work to do for other projects that were related to mine or required my skills. I was told that that was my project and to make it mine I had to be the person running it, acquiring the data, doing the data analysis and coming up with the conclusions. The only support I was given was a meeting every now and again to double check the quality of my data and my results with my supervisor.

The skills I developed are very valuable and will definitely assist me with my degree studies. The experimental skill I got will definitely be valuable when completing my lab project in university and when I'm applying for PhDs. Also, I somehow got to work on an aspect of what my main scientific interests are, which helped me realized that this is the area of science I want to work on in the future.

I worked in an open plan office, which meant no interaction with anyone except for the people sitting next to you. It was easy to find whoever you need to and to check if they are at their desk but apart form that it wasn't great. The only positive thing was that people were bringing cake to work almost every day and you were always welcome to have some and feel a bit better.

The placement was very well set up as it's been run for years. There was a lab training course in the beginning of the year, poster session, project presentations, a-level student tutoring week, journal club, a few workshops. However, as much helpful as these can be, no feedback from the students is taken into consideration when arranging them or to improve them in any way. Most of them felt like a waste of time as they did not reflect the needs of the students. Poster session and presentations were good. The other drawback is that we were employed by an agency rather than by GSK and the agency had very poor communication with both the students and GSK, making any tax, holiday, pay and employment questions and request difficult to sort out.

The company did invest in a lot of training as there were always workshops that you can attend if you want to improve on your interpersonal and lab skills and want to now a bit more about the organisation itself. Most people were very open and if you ask them for a meeting they will be happy to help so you can get some good tips on universities, applying for PhDs, applying for work and dealing with the work itself. You feel like a full time employee and can definitely benefit from most things that full-timers have access to.

I'm not very interested in working in industry in the future as here you are told the question you need to answer and you are expected to deliver some answer within a time limit. A lot of the time you are pressured into doing more than you possibly can to complete the company's portfolio. Some aspects of it are nice but I don't think it's for me as it is not very research driven but rather optimisation-for-profit focused. There are not that many options anyways. Most of the people that are hired have already completed a PhD and the ones that haven't are contingent workers, which may or may not be hired as full time staff, but at the lowest positions with little prospects of progress within the next 10 years.

I would say most placement students were very nice people and it's been a pleasure to know them. We were usually going out on Fridays in the local pubs and having another fun activity like bowling, cinema, restaurant, board game nights during the week. Apart from that, there weren't many things organised by the placement student 'union'. There was the Christmas ball, which was alright but overpriced; the Boat party, which great; and other events in London, which were very inconvenient to get to. There were also pub lunches, Christmas lunch and team building events where everyone from the department was invited and they were usually quite fun.

I think the average student accommodation costs were about £400-500 a month. Transportation is quite expensive as the GSK site is at one end of town - £2.10/£3.20 single/return on bus to get to the shuttle bus; taxis are quite expensive as well- £7+ (£7 fixed fare for 9:30-21:00*). Most food places are chain restaurants so they have the same price as everywhere else.

Poor. But London is 30 min away and Cambridge is 40 min away by train. There are some better places (bars, restaurants and clubs) in some of near towns.

Only what you and your friends come up with but there's not much to do in town. And everyone is quite busy during the week and a lot of the students go home for the weekends.