Reseach Scientist Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my placement year at GSK. Working for GSK has given me the opportunity to work for a top pharmaceutical company, learning scientific techniques as well as getting an idea of what it's like to work full time. Working for a company as big as GSK also gave me the chance to work alongside lots of other placement students.

I have been lucky in my placement year in that I had two young supervisors and feel like this meant we got on really well. I knew their main focus was for me to perform well at work and progress with my project I also felt like I could go to them with any problems.

I had two supervisors throughout my placement and both were outstanding. They were both below 30 which meant I had a very closer and comfortable relationship. They both really supported my personal development and always let me work my lab work around going to workshops and lectures that were on.

I'd say my work load varied hugely day to day. Some weeks I would have a mad week with lots of lab work on and had to be really organised in order to get things done. However other weeks I would be a lot quieter and had more of a chance to catch up on desk work. Overall across the year it was a good balance.

I was given a lot of responsibility for the work within my own project as well as being given smaller responsibility helping out with other peoples. I think the level of responsibility I was given throughout the year increased. This was good in meaning that I didn't feel under pressure with having too much.

I've learnt many transferable skills throughout my year. The planning of my experiments has taught me a lot about time planning and organisation. It's also taught me that not always things are successful the first time and therefore taught me about being resilient. It's also strengthened my teamwork and communication skills.

I was in a very big open office with hot seat desks. This meant that I had the chance to meet and speak to lots of people outside of my team. I think this really suited my 'people person' personality. In my department there was also a lot of students.

As there was a lot of students within my department (13) I feel like this meant it was very well organised. We all had the same training week together at the start which was nice to help us to get to know each other. We also all kept in contact about at what stage we were at with our project and it helped us all keep on track.

There was multiple opportunities for personal development throughout my year. The was career sessions held for both science and non-science careers. I also went to a series of workshops based on interviews. These workshops allowed for practice of group based interviews, video interviews, 1 to 1 interviews and role play interviews. These will all be very useful to me nexy year applying for jobs when I graduate.

I feel like this year my placement has taught me that if I want to stay in a science career and progress well in this then I need to do a PhD. I think I now know that this is something I would not be interested in and therefore is making me think I need to consider a different career path.

I have been very lucky with the friends that I have made this year. I lived in a house of 4 and we were all in different departments. This allowed to us quickly meet a lot of different students and make a good group of friends. We tend to cook dinner at each others houses at least once a week, we've been for weekends away as well as lots of fun weekends in London.

The cost of rent in Stevenage was ok. In fact it was very similar to the rent that I paid at uni. In terms of socialising I found that I spent a lot. This was because there isn't much to do in Stevenage therefore I found I spent a lot of money on travel into London and visiting friends.

Talking about Stevenage only there was no nightlife. There is one club but it's very expensive and not very good. However, London is on the door step with some trains taking only 20 minutes. Me and my friends found that most of our fun nights out were therefore in London.

I didn't personally get involved in that many things however I know work offer netball sessions, squash tournaments, discounted tough mudder entry, charity bike rides. Aside from activities organised by work I found that because of the large number of students here was also organised a lot of our own activities.