Clinical Statistician Review

I really enjoyed my placement year. At GSK there are lots of things to get involved in like personal development workshops, annual events, and employee resource groups. This really helps develop your soft skills and enables you to network, which is what I have enjoyed the most during my year in industry.

My colleagues are really friendly and nice to be around. I feel valued as they are appreciative of the work I do, and I am able to have an input and it is listened to. My colleagues also are all willing to answer any questions I have, which is great.

My manager and members of my team were extremely supportive. They would always be willing to spend time explaining things to me and I could feel comfortable asking questions. Sometimes I was left to learn things on my own, however I think this is a valuable skill to learn and I could always ask if I got stuck!

My working load would vary a lot. There would be weeks where I would be very busy (this wasn't too busy, I rarely had to stay late), then there would be weeks where I wouldn't have as much work on. In quiet patches, I think there is always work you can find, even if it is on things like meeting up with people to ask about there jobs or working on your CV. So this is what I did when my work load was less.

I was given quite a lot of responsibility on my placement. towards the start I felt like a lot of my jobs were more to help me learn things, rather than to be beneficial to the team. However, later on in the year I was given more important jobs that were directly useful for the team

I don't think I will go into the area that I worked therefore, the technical skills I learnt probably wont hugely assist me. The other soft skills I have learnt will hugely help my in my future career. At GSK there was a huge amount of training available on anything from technical skills and also soft skills.

The atmosphere in my office is really friendly, everyone will say hi and it is not a serious atmosphere. Sometimes I feel like it can be a bit too quite and I would have preferred a more busy office. Take into account though that every office will be slightly different

GSK has a lot of placement students so it is pretty well organised. There are events set up specially for student inside and outside of work. SRG who employ us will also answer any questions and are there to help you out if you need anything. Before starting my placement I had all the information I needed and the induction day was good

At GSK there is endless opportunities for training and development. These can be both specific to your job and also general soft skills. You have to be quite proactive in signing up to these things but there are there if you want them! I think this was one of the best parts of my placement

At GSK placement students won't often get a job directly offered to them whilst they are on their placement. There are grad schemes available that placement students can get early applications for. I didn't do this but I know it would be very beneficial if you have already worked here for a year when applying for a job

At GSK in Stevenage there is so many placement students that you have plenty of them to make friends witch. Different friendship groups will socialise a different amount but in general I think people are very social. There are also event organised for all of the students like the summer boat party and the Christmas ball

Living near London the cost of socialising is quite expensive. I spend a lot more than I did at university. Around Stevenage there is some cheaper options.

There is not many options in Stevenage apart from 2 clubs and some pubs. It is ok for the odd night but not many people go out in Stevenage very often. London is easy to get to so most people go out there as there is much more to choose from!

Stevenage has quite a few opportunities like sports clubs to get involved in