Medical Affairs Review

Overall, placement has been an invaluable experience. My two year long projects were insightful and allowed me to develop skills that will benefit me when applying for graduate roles. However I found I spent a significant portion of placement without work despite asking my manager; this was very tiresome and took away from the positive aspects.

On the whole, the members of my team valued my contributions and were very positive about the work I produced. The director of my team was very friendly and welcoming of the IPs in his team which was reassuring. I feel like all members of the team are approachable and happy to help where they can.

My manager was very approachable if I had issues or questions, however I had difficulties throughout the year with having a lack of feedback on my work and getting extra work to do. Once i had completed my two placement year projects, it was an uphill struggle at every stage to get this reviewed and get feedback, meaning that I lost faith and enjoyment during the year.

When I had work to do I was busy and I enjoyed what i was doing. however, for a significant portion of the placement I had little or no work to do. I was proactive ina sking other members of my team for work, but none of these pieces lasted a significant length of time and so i was back to feeling like a spare part.

With respect to the projects and work I completed, I was given the responsibility and flexibility to complete the projects in the way I wanted which i appreciated. I had the freedom to complete the work how I wanted. I also completed some shadowing, which I organised myself towards the last quarter of the year.

I am in no doubt that completing a placement year has been the best decision I have made in my career so far. I have had the opportunity to develop my skills further and this year has made me more well-rounded, professional, and employable. I have so much more I can talk about when I go through the graduate application process.

The overall atmosphere within the office was welcoming and friendly. I feel on the most part that my colleagues treated IPs as equal employees and not just as students here for work experience.

GSK was very well prepared for the intake of IPs. We were made aware from the start of our IP coordinator who we could approach for help if we needed at any point. At the beginning we were also invited to a large number of introduction talks from the different teams on site to get us acquainted with how GSK is structured from the start. When I came to GSK, my placement projects were also already decided and organised which I appreciated.

There is a lot of online training which you can access whether assigned to you or not if you want to learn more. There was also a lot of resources available throughout the year such as financial clinics - more applicable to permanent staff but gives an example of the sorts of things GSK offers its staff. My manager also did give me careers advice and discussed potential options with me on several occasions too.

The future leaders graduate scheme available at GSK is a very popular choice and is also highly rated and sought after. There are a large number of roles available within this also. Despite this, I was not interested in applying to the scheme based on how I rated the year overall - if I had enjoyed it more I would have considered applying, but I didn't want to just apply for the sake of it if I was left underwhelmed at times by the year.

The IPs as a whole bonded really well from the start; if you wanted to organise a social occasion such as a night out or a meal this was always well received. We also organised a trip for the IPs to Center Parcs which was an experience I really enjoyed.

Living in Surrey is not cheap. Rent here is expensive compared to where I am from. The pay we got for the year was manageable to live on in a shared house - but a one bedroom flat would be tight to afford. Socialising is also more expensive as the price of drinks is very large, but there are student areas nearby which are less pricey.

In Weybridge it is very quiet and very much a family-orientated vibe. There are nearby places to go out such as Guildford which is a more student-friendly area with the uni there. That made for some good nights out and was relatively cheap. Living near Weybridge made it easy to go out in central London also - which was much more expensive but the sort of night out that I liked to experience while I lived so close to London.

There are things to do around Surrey, it just depends on what you like to do. There are plenty of pubs to go to and good places for shopping. There is always something to do if you want to go out and socialise with friends.