Chemistry Industrial placement student Review

Great working environment. Colleagues were extremely helpful and knowledgeable. Gained a lot of knowledge and experience in my time there and enjoyed the overall experience.

I was acknowledged for my work and felt I was making a valuable contribution. The working environment was very relaxed and friendly, making me feel very comfortable there and form good working relationships.

My progress was reviewed and suggestions were made as to what areas I could improve on. I also had one to one meetings with my supervisor and manager to discuss my progress and see how I was getting on. I could always go to my supervisor or team member for help and suggestions and had access to training facilities and materials that helped me with my work.

There is always a lot of work to do so you are continuously kept busy; no time to be bored! Most of the time I would be doing more than one task so I was always kept busy with tasks or could use free time I had to look for research to help with my future tasks. I found the work balance fine as normally there were no strict deadlines to adhere to so I was able to take my time on my work, plus sometimes work took longer than expected.

My placement allowed me to make decisions on my own regarding my work and produce my own research to help support choices. I was responsible for reporting my own data and managing my work load. I found that my responsibilities grew more as my placement progressed and I became more skilled/ confident with the work.

I feel that not only have I learnt new skills such as new chemistry knowledge but I have improved and developed my own skills further including, leadership, communication, organisation and time management. I feel that the skills I have learnt will be applicable to any career path I choose. I now have a better knowledge of organic chemistry and have become more motivated since coming back for my final year.

Everyone was friendly and approachable and the working environment was really relaxed and stress free. We even had music on in the laboratories which helped to keep the relaxed vibe!

Very well organised. Received brilliant training, support and guidance and many of the people I worked with already had previous experience of working with placement students and so knew the best ways to train and support us.

They invested a lot of time and money into my training through a variety of training sessions and helped me to evaluate my progress and help to develop myself within the work place with many colleagues dedicating a lot of their time time to help to support me.

I had a great experience there and would be happy to return to the company later on.

We all spoke to each other before meeting on the familiarization day; getting to know each other which helped when finding accommodation. I lived with two girls for the entirety of my placement and had a brilliant time. There were also a few other placement students in my lab with me so I got to know other students through work. We had many events such as a work Christmas party, social events and pub lunches which I really enjoyed.

Cost of living wasn't too bad (the rent for our house was very reasonable and i could walk to work. Plus they had a free shuttle bus to work from the train station) but Stevenage was expensive to go out in! London was only a 25 minute train ride away which once again was generally expensive if you wanted a social night out.

Two clubs which were both quite expensive (depending on the day and time!) although there were a lot of pubs in the area including two wetherspoons which was cheap and cheerful.

Although I was involved activities such as the gym at work, a few of my friends had got involved in opportunities such as swimming, tai chi and a local orchestra.