Associate Clincial Data Scientist Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience at GSK I was placed in a very supportive team that have guided my development throughout the duration of the placement. I had the opportunity to travel, build my network and gain great exposure to the pharmaceutical industry. I believe my placement year at GSK has allowed me to develop both professionally and personally.

I definitely felt valued as part of my team as I was given opportunity and responsibility throughout. They have been a great support network and would regularly give positive feedback on tasks that I worked on. I do feel as though at times some of the tasks I was given were quite menial but this was balanced out by having responsibility over other things.

My manager gave me a lot of support, especially at the beginning of my placement and then as my confidence grew there was a lot less 'hand holding' which meant that I was able to become more independent with the work I was doing. My manager also supported my interest in taking part in roles outside of my study work which has aided my development greatly.

I always had regular tasks to complete and due to being on a gamechanger study it meant that as a team we were always working towards deliverables. I never felt as though I was ever overloaded work, I enjoyed the level of pressure and business that came hand in hand with the nature of my role.

As a data scientist I was given responsibility over key pieces of data and in particular on one piece I have had to show others within the department how to work with that data and interact with the vendor we get this transfer from. I have also had the opportunity to lead teams on other projects (STEM, team site) and have overall responsibility as a result of this.

As my role was office based and on a subject that I do not study, academically this role will not have benefited me much. However, undoubtedly my softer skills such as organisation, communication, leadership, teamwork, time management etc have improved considerably and will help me greatly when I go back to university. This year has developed my soft skills so much that I am more confident and motivated to go on to complete the final year of my degree and continue with my career in academia.

The office is quite quiet and the demographic is generally a little older than university students. However, having a group of IP students at Stockley Park really helps bridge the gap between the university life that we are used to and the world of work. It is clear that everyone here is incredibly diligent and focused on helping improve patients lives as we are an R&D hub.

I think at the beginning it was a little disjointed and as your placement experience is largely down to the discretion of an individual's manager and the project you are assigned to, it varies greatly between students I have noted. Personally I have found my placement to be very organised and I had regular meetings with my manager to discuss goals, workload and things I wanted explore further.

There was a lot of opportunity to learn more via mylearning and GSK also arranged a training plan at the start of our placement that enabled us to receive talks from people from various sectors of the organisation. This pieced together how the company works. There was a lot of opportunity to reach out to individuals to learn more about their role and also opportunity to visit different sites too.

There is opportunity but I think that is few and far between. Permanent positions are not recruited for that often and the graduate scheme is highly competitive and doing a placement at GSK doesn't improve your chances of being successful. I think that this is understandable as GSK is such a large company, but students shouldn't apply for a placement here if they believe they are guaranteed a job at the end of it.

Between colleagues not so much. Within the placement students there was lots of social events and as I lived with other placement students this also helped the social scene. We also had the opportunity to attend events with students across different sites such as the Christmas Ball, Tough Mudder and the summer boat party.

I lived in Ealing, West London this is quite expensive but you don't have much of a choice when living in London.I don't live in Uxbridge, where my office is based, as there is not much to do there. Socialising has been great I have made lots of new friends and we have had a great time exploring London together.

Uxbridge has nothing with regards to nightlife hence why it is recommended to live in London and commute in (takes around 45mins door to door) if nightlife is something you are looking for,

I personally didn't but there was opportunity to do sport if that's something you are into.