Placement Student Review

My project was quite slow to get started, so at first I was quite bored, and was mainly focussed on my university work – i.e. a literature review of the subject area. However, once I started my project, I found it very interesting, and enjoyed being able to put into practice a lot of the information I’d found out from independent reading for my literature review.

All of us students were regarded in the same light as full time members of staff. However, of course, at first this took some getting used to, and I felt quite nervous sharing my ideas. When I did share my ideas, they were taken seriously, and constructive feedback was provided if necessary.

My supervisor was very approachable. Because the subject area of my placement was not something that I had studied at university, at first I had a lot of questions, which he answered clearly and patiently. At times I felt a bit lost, however, especially when his own work load was very high, and I felt a bit hesitant to ask questions as I thought it may distract and irritate him.

To start with, when I had very little practical work to do as my project had not started, I was in the lab very little – only to help out with standard day-to-day work. As a result, I was not very busy, and was lucky I had so much university work to keep me occupied. Conversely, when I did start my project, I had much more work to do, and always had something to think about – which was good. I was still able to balance university work with my placement work well.

At first, when I was in the lab, I was only shadowing different members of staff, however I gradually took on more and more of a practical role until, after about two months, I was independently running my own experiments. I was allowed to approach members of staff independently and discuss with them how to further improve my project. Occasionally I felt that my supervisor's presence in the lab with me was unnecessary, because I was confident in the techniques, and learned best when having to think for myself, without having someone to ask.

I received plenty of training and experience in cell culture, which is ubiquitous to all fields of cellular and molecular biology, therefore, because I definitely want to do a PhD in a related area, I definitely feel this is a skill for life. The knowledge I gained from my literature review will surely help with my studies in the next year of my degree, and, in fact, the biological area of my project has influenced my module choices for next year.

The fact that all the students were placed at desks close to each other made it really easy to get to know one another and, once that had happened, it made our bit of the office really sociable. However, because we were positioned away from the rest of our department, it hindered getting to know other members of staff well. Some members of staff were very lively, others were not.

I feel that more work could have been arranged for me at the start of my placement. Also, occasionally, there was some disagreement between various departments in the company over the direction my project should take, with, at times, no clear decision made at the end of the meeting, which made me a bit unsure of what I would be doing in, say, the next week, or even month.

We were allowed to take part in ‘journal club’ sessions with other students which would involve presenting and commenting on the findings of a biomedical research paper, to improve our critical analysis skills. A scientific writing seminar was arranged for us, to give us guidance on how to write our end-of-year reports. More generally, team building days were organised throughout the year, to help us get to know other members of the department.

Most of the graduate schemes are involved in the business/corporate side of the company, with none involved with scientific lab research. Thus, for students like me, none of these schemes appeal at all. However, I would very much enjoy to work for the company again, particularly in a research role, because I found my project very engaging.

All of us placement students got on brilliantly, with a naturally sociable environment due to 100 students being employed at one time. There was an organisation, run by placement students, which arranged events and parties, such as a Christmas Ball, throughout the year. Aside from that, there were always parties planned on a regular basis. Although full time members of staff socialised with the students in some departments, this did not happen much in mine.

My rent was relatively expensive compared to what I was paying at university, especially consider that I was not living in a nice area (Stevenage) this year. Aside from that, the cost of living was typical for a normal town. Because there were nicer towns in the area, we occasionally spent days/evenings there, though these places generally were more expensive.

There was only one night club which was quite expensive, but there were several bars in Stevenage itself (though these weren’t very pleasant), as well as some much nicer bars in local towns. Due to our social nature, however, we didn’t mind too much, as there were always parties going on at the weekend. Being close to London also meant that good nights out were accessible.

There were plenty of non-competitive sports clubs organised at the company gym, such as netball, football, and badminton. Aside from those, there not many other opportunities, though occasionally we went out for department meals during the day, and inter-department quizzes were organised on site. They were good fun, and created a jovial sense of competition.