Analytical Chemist Review

In general I enjoyed my placement a lot in variety of ways. I had a chance to use numerous analytical techniques since my team gradually switched from inhaled to oral drugs development which brought new techniques to my team. Apart from that I was an active member of Spectrum (LGBT employee resource group at GSK) with whom I planned Pride Week activities and participated in London Pride 2018 under GSK's wings! Whole placement was truly an amazing adventure and experience which I will never forget .

I developed very friendly and close relations with majority of my colleagues. This was made easier by numerous going outs and occasional parties (Christmas and Easter parties, BBQ lunches in the summer) which allowed me to get them better and better as the year went by. Now that I finish my placement here I feel I'm leaving a family behind and will definitely miss them and working with them on daily basis, but hopefully I'll get a chance to visit them soon!

There wasn't a single day I felt left without help and guidance. Since the beginning my supervisor and everyone around me was very helpful at any point of the day. The training and induction process was very well organised and allowed me to become fully qualified and trained for the majority of the techniques used by my department in less than a month.

For the majority of time I was given plenty of work to do, in the right balance. I could decide for myself the pace of the work and manage my experiments in own way. Sometimes there were periods when my team didn't have much work to do but I always used it to work on my university project and placement report.

I felt relied on and valued for the majority of my placement, with both of them gradually increasing throughout the year as I was getting to know my team better. There were couple of projects I was a big contributor to but sometimes I wish I could have more decisive voice about its later progress. However, I felt very valued for my software and technology skills and I think my team relied on me in many of such aspects.

During my placement I had a chance to put into practice what I had learned during my second year Analytical Chemistry course (mainly HPLC, reversed and HILIC phase) and some of the Colloids part of physical chemistry (for dissolution testing of tablets). I think it gave me more confidence in laboratory work and experience in conducting experiments that I can manage on my own from beginning to and end.

Very friendly attitude of all team members. There were a lot of times we talked about not work-related things and current affairs which made the atmosphere more chill and home-like. I developed very friendly relations with my team colleagues and will definitely miss our jokes, conversations and going outs from time to time!

The placement set up was well organised and since before I joined my team there was already a small project prepared for me in case I had to do one for university. I was positively surprised at that since I know not all students were given a project in their team. There were many possibilities to learn new techniques and I felt I was assigned work in a way so that I can take the most out of it.

I felt I was given numerous opportunities to develop my skills not only in chemistry and work related areas but also personal and organisational skills (many opportunities to volunteer and do charity work). However, I wasn't allowed to do site visits when they organised for IP which felt quite limiting as it comes to exploring possible jobs you'd like to do in the future.

The work environment and atmosphere around everything is excellent. However, many times I felt the work I was doing was too routine for me. However, it's very easy if you want to come back to GSK or apply for their graduate schemes. For now I probably won't come back but maybe in the future.

Yes. There were around 40 students on my site and we all were going out quite often. There were also couple of events organised for students such as site visits, IP presentation and insight days, lab tours etc. In general, a very good student scene compared to other companies I heard about.

I worked in Ware which is a small town around 45 km from the city centre of London. It was much cheaper than London and than my university area in Bath and since I never lived so close to London, that was a big advantage too. Ware came out to be very lively with nice cosy pubs and food places, to my surprise, after my initial expectations that it was going to be boring.

Quite a good range of places to go out to in Ware and Hertford (a small town nearby) which is just on train stop away. Apart from that, London is only 45 mins by train from the town which opens a lot more possibilities with good train connections until midnight.

Yes. GSK collaborates with many local and nationwide charity organisations such as Orange United where many volunteering opportunities are available. Apart from that GSK actively takes part in STEM activities in schools where sometimes students are needed to work with A-level or GSCS students. For 3 past years GSK also takes part in London Pride with Proud Science alliance where there's a chance to participate in its organisation.